A couple of weeks later, Barney's at the vet. Woman next to me with an old Rottweiler, grey round the muzzle, harness round his back end. I must have been staring, because she laughed.
I told her about Barney. All of it. The towel, the ramp, Alan in his dressing gown.
She asked me one thing. “Once he's up, can he still walk?”
“Yeah. Once he's up, he's alright.”
“Then stop trying to pick all of him up. He just needs help getting started.”
She showed me on her Rottweiler in the car park. Four things, and they're the whole method:
Think of a wheelbarrow
You don't carry the load. You lift the handles a few inches and the wheel does the rolling. His front legs are the wheel. The handle over his hips is the handles. You lift a little at the back, and he rolls himself up.
And the bit that took the guilt off me: nobody can lift a dog off the floor properly. Not Dave, not the vet, not you. Hold a bag of shopping out at arm's length and it feels three times heavier than by your side. That's every towel lift you've ever done.
Then she said the thing I wish someone had told me a year earlier. It's about what happens if you keep waiting.
