Doggie laser question

HORRIBLE item!
A couple people that we knew bought them.....made their dogs NEUROTIC CHASERS!
No...it's not just "the dog"...it's a horrible item!
JMO
Robin

Thank you, that is what I thought.

I have heard and read of a LOT of stories bout dogs being permanently affected by those laser toys - chasing lights and shadows, even going through a window to chase a car going by the house with the sunlight reflecting off the car windows! Not just GSDs, either, other breeds too.

It triggers something in their brain that short-circuits the chase-catch-kill prey drive instinct, so that they can't properly shut it down. Some dogs seem fine with it, but others may become light chasers after only one play session. I'm glad that I have heard of these warnings, I have never used the laser lights, and will stay away from them.

Interestingly, they don't seem to affect cats the same. Not that I have heard of, anyways.

Lasers are a very common trigger for light/shadow chasing OCD, especially in the higher drive/more obsessive breeds. If you do a google search on lasers and OCD in dogs you'll get lots of results.

I used to use one a lot before it was stolen. I never had a problem with any neurotic behaviors resulting from it at all.

I used one with my cats, but cats are cats and tend to chase everything anyway. Never used one with a dog.

Some dogs are prone to developing obsessive behaviors from playing with a laser. Not all dogs will do this, it depends on the dog-- some have natural tendancies towards that type of thing but other dogs can play with a laser and never get obsessed.
This is true with some cats as well. I have one cat who gets very focused on the laser, and she will also get focused (or chase) light or reflections on the wall and shadows. However she did those things before I ever played with her with a laser (as I know she wasn't introduced to a laser before I got her because I've has her since she was 3 weeks old.)

I do sometimes play with a laser with my cats, and I do this when Bianca is in the room. She'll glance at the laser dot if it comes near her but she never tries to chase it.

Glad I read this! I had played with my dogs with a laser a bought for my cats; figured out it was a bad idea after a while, since both dogs went absolutely nuts over it....didn't think that it was very good for them and have not used in in a long time.

There have been quite a few threads on laser pointers, personally I think there are better ways to exercise a dog and if they are prone to OCD then it is dangerous to their phyche~Onyx is one that can't handle it.

Syaoransbear said:

I used to use one a lot before it was stolen. I never had a problem with any neurotic behaviors resulting from it at all.

Click to expand...

The problem is that you often don't know if your dog is one at risk for having OCD behaviors triggered by playing with laser lights until it happens. So IMO they are best avoided. If you've ever seen a dog with light/shadow OCD, you'd agree that it is definitely something that you don't want to risk triggering.

Agree with AgileGSD. Neither of my dogs have ever shown an OCD type behaviour over anything, but I'd rather not risk it. Once triggered, it is not something that can be fixed easily.

I was reading about a Rottweiler on another board. He was adopted from a rescue, the dog had an unknown history. In his new home, he immediatly started to focus on the chandelier, literaly trying to climb furniture and trying to climb the walls to get to the chandelier, to the point of injuring himself. When not crated, the dog could NOT be distracted from the chandelier for anything! It
was like his brain just wasn't working. The dog had to be returned. I always wondered if the dog got like that because the previous owners used a laser light to play with him, then when the OCD started, they got rid of him.

I did not know that they could be so damaging. My oldest poodle loved playing with the poiner light when he was young. One day I pointed it at his paw and he figured out it was light. The magic was gone for him and he never chased it again. He is not always the brightest dog, but he has his moments.