Enabling more people to solve more problems is a great benefit to everyone, even people who don't like AI. I'm using AI to solve problems for me, and I hope more people continue this trend.

I wish AI solved the problem of writing like shit. It REALLY bothers me how bad AI writing is and I'm not at all negative about the technology itself. I love AI, I just don't like the side effect of all this garbage content being regurgitated on the internet right now.

This is exactly the type of niche service that modern technology enables. Without that tech (3D printing, the internet, AI) things like this are simply more likely to just not exist because it would be impossible to make the economics work.

This is a net gain all around.

Having owned many dogs and varying DME devices... I don't think that would work, dog would slip out of it easily. If you leave just a little slack the dog can move head without much consequence. Dog will adapt to it if it limits motion and it will likely be minor.

That would have to be a lot more custom fitted to the dog. It's not the best but the neck attachment is a lot easier. Also it seems to work just fine from the large amount of users it's gotten too, I bet the distance doesn't actually change that much.

Microplastics shouldn’t make the list of things to worry about here.

For one, we don’t really know how/why microplastics are bad, or how bad. If they have significant bad effects, the mechanism is slow and subtle, so unlikely to affect dogs (who, very sadly, just don’t live that long).

Second, the incremental increase in microplastics from this device would be very tiny compared to typical exposure estimates.

When you balance the very small risk against a tangible benefit, they answer is clear.

If it is, we should probably start by worrying about chew toys.

I wouldn't worry about that, but about bacteria colonies inside the print. Sure dogs already eat random (and literal) shit, but if it's placed on an already inflammation prone nose, maybe it should be a some special material. Bacteria don't grow on metals, maybe it can be some silver ion filament or maybe at least solid resin

Dogs likely don't live long enough for microplastics to be a big problem. We haven't seen an increase in cancers in dogs in recent years like we have with people.

They're main exposure to microplastics would be from toys, water, dishes, and low-quality food, anyway. This nose guard would be a small drop in the bucket.

We rarely use a muzzle for our shepherd but the ironic part is people keep extra distance because it looks so menacing.

Do napkin math on how much lead is actually in a 3d print. Then think about the exposure that actually translates to, since most of that is buried inside a print.

We're talking micrograms per kg with a brass nozzle, unless you're printing in an abrasive filament. Possibly less - nozzle wear with non-abrasive filaments is very minor. If you're using a steel nozzle... Well, besides the fact that your steel nozzle probably doesn't contain lead, you're looking at an order of magnitude less wear or better.

Or, look at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6530847/ for a worst case scenario.

Lead in 3d prints is not just overblown, but a total non-issue outside of a laboratory context.

Lead isn't the reason they're generally not food safe, it's the additives they use to make the plastics more printable.

Why are you concerned about the food safety of this though?

I've heard of 3D prints being not-food-safe for a host of reasons, but lead is a new one. How does lead get into the filament? Care to share an article?

What's the big risk though? Plastic has pretty low conductivity so the surface in the sun might get a little warm but the whole thing will take a long time to heat up. Same thing keeps it from being very dangerous to touch, plastic transmits the heat it has to your hand more slowly too. Plus most dog noses are already black so you're not even really changing the absorption of the area much. If the nose can carry away the heat of the sun directly hitting the nose skin it can do the same for it creeping through the plastic nose guard too.

Like dog noses?

Like car tires?

It is not censored, it is covered. There are many people who find images of wounds off-putting.

If you click the image it goes away.

It's specifically against the guidelines to post LLM-generated comments here [1]. As for LLM-assisted articles on 3rd-party sites, we're more lenient about them because we can't always expect people to follow our guidelines on their own site, and sometimes the substance wins out even if an LLM is used to "polish" the writing. But you can see what happens when an article is posted that has obvious LLM-smell; the discussion ends up being much more about that than the article's content.

> I’m a designer, not a writer

Most people are not "writers" but anyone can write their own story in their own words, and it's always much more charming than the output of a text-generation tool, especially when the topic is something you did for your pet :)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#genai

FWIW, the headings are still very Claude-speak, and it's somehow more off-putting to read Claude writing in 1st person than in its usual persona

Wow, that is a great story! Really like how you used tech to treat a health issue. Keep up the good work!

I don't think you need to make it DLE exclusive. My dog gets fungal infections on his nose and this would probably help. Although TBH I haven't gone looking for solutions.

I would be concerned about the lead in 3D prints. Even if you take proper precautions (which is very difficult because it's the material in the extruder and filament) they are not food safe and easily grow bacteria.

FWIW I read the whole article now, so can’t compare to before, but I never thought it was written using AI. Congrats on the product it’s really wonderful what you achieved.

Thanks - and congratulations. One question. What is this UV-sensitive filament, and does it really change color in both directions as quickly as the video shows?

This dude invented not one but multiple dog health care products ... with no animal product design background whatsoever! Then (with no business background) he started an entire company helping hundreds of dogs all over the world.

Maybe instead of expecting everyone to be good at everything, we cut this guy a little slack and let him use AI to help write?

Unnecessary comment. It is really heartwarming to see an individual do something in his spare time that helps 100s of being that can't speak for themselves.

I wish we could put the paw-litics aside and not be so snoot-y about the AI writing and focus on the awesomeness of this idea. Honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see it in re-tail. You’re barking up the right tree and I wish you success and a lot of kibble money.

Are y'all gonna register a complaint for each and every instance of an LLM written or enhanced article anywhere?

It's mainstreamed. Spare the rest of us.

Personally, comments like this are against the guidelines. Please either downvote and move on, or comment about the parts that are interesting and substantive.

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

> Find something interesting to respond to instead.

> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.

> Omit internet tropes.

I'm OK with this, let's start by shitting on 100% Ai slop products and slop products with bad intentions first

I find it so much more annoying when it's on something that should be genuinely interesting - I just can't read this even though I do actually want to.

Yeah, it's every paragraph.

You don’t know that. He could be a terrible writer.

"The free Shield, rebuilt"

It’s pretty easy to figure out what DLE was about from the context clues in the article. Knowing that it means discoid lupus erythematosus and the detailed definition wouldn’t have added much imo. In fact I didn’t even care to look it up until I read your comment.

if you're referring to DLE, from the second paragraph:

> When she was diagnosed with DLE, discoid lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the skin on the nose and sunlight makes it worse

edit: ah, just saw a comment from the author indicating they added that post-hoc

Sounds like someone just needs to spend more time keeping up with rare canine autoimmune disorders

Wasn't part of the point of the post was that this is a passion project? It's not a viable business.