I designed and printed a custom nose guard to help my dog with DLE
snoutcover.com382 points by ragswag 3 days ago
382 points by ragswag 3 days ago
How wonderful! Also, please tell me you at least _considered_ naming it the "Snoot Boot…"
I've had dogs for the better part of my life and not a single time was a 'foxtail' an issue, whereas grasses that grow these kind of constructs are pretty common around here. Did I (and my dogs!) get lucky? How common are these issues?
I have a tiny long-haired dog (the first dog I've ever had) and I'm glad our first trainer/behaviourist mentioned the dangers of foxtails to us. We casually asked the vet if it was a problem and she said they see around 2-3 animals a week with issues caused by foxtails during the late summer/early autumn months. This is in the Southern UK. It's been getting drier and drier every year. And subsequently more and more foxtails seem to be appearing.
The main issue we've found is she gets them stuck under her "armpits" and under the tail. Places that make them very difficult to find. Even more insidious is when they embed themselves in the harness, only to make an appearance weeks or months later when the outdoor foxtails have mostly been cut down.
The problem is that they can work their way under the skin with a barbed spike that is one-way only. So if they get deep enough the only remedy is to cut the skin with a scalpel - by the vet of course.
This is so awesome! I actually think, with a few tweaks this can be a really great protection against foxtails.
Foxtails are extremely lethal and can lead to thousands of dollars in vet bills. All current protections in the market are effectively a bag over your pet’s face, which as you can imagine, are not that popular with the pets.
https://amosdudley.com/weblog/Designing-PPE-for-Hilde has a story of designing a 3d print for foxtails.
dog's ready for WW1 trenches
also have to work on my own CAD skills for complex contours like that, been in parameteric/SketchUp land
I like that the creator is giving the STL away for free
It's awesome, lots of kudos to the creator for doing so! Personally I'm more likely to buy things where the authors makes the schematic/3D object/whatever available for free for the DIY people out there, and those who couldn't otherwise get the thing to them for one or another reason.
> I know there are other dogs and owners out there facing similar struggles. That’s why I’m sharing this design for free. While it’s not adjustable by design, it should fit medium-to-large dogs as is. If needed, measurements can be adjusted using the scaling feature in your slicer software, but some slots, like those for the straps, might deform in the process.
Only missing for it to be a parametric design people could easily adjust based on their own measurements, but trivial to change yourself too, so again, lots of thanks to the author for improving the whole world, not just a tiny piece of it.
The shop customizes measurements. Is it easy to modify the STL with custom measurements?
Not trivial, but not impossible either. Usually though the product would be designed in some CAD program, and when the shop customizes measurements they adjust them manually based on copies of the model. The "pro" way would be to have a parametrized version, but it's also trickier to create. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm getting the vibe the author picked up modelling/3D printing as they went along, so the easier route would be hardcoded values changed for each customer.
Creator here, Thanks for the kind words
It's been a really harsh and long process to CAD this model, it's also really complex to change measurements for it.
As I do wish to have a simpler version for customizing, for now by taking people orders I might either build a new parametric model, or have a growing "bank" of models and measurements to share for free like the main version.
It's the best thing i've read on HN lately! I'm so happy her snoot has fully recovered!
Poor Billie’s snoot! Glad you are such a caring owner.
Please consider the nickname “Tycho Brahe” for her.
Can you please make a very slightly longer to cover the mouth? My dog is an amazing scavenger, I've tried a lot of different things to stop him eating random food that upsets his stomach. Where we live people are neglectful or think throwing away random food is good for animals.
I got this for my dog. It annoys her a bit but I'm hoping she'll get used to it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BF5C9VTY
Let's Goooo! This awesome! Let's have more of this.
This is pretty awesome, regardless when it was originally done.
Billie is lucky to have such a dexterous owner!
This is the promise of tech and the hacker ethos that SV killed long ago.
Thank you.
Billie is a good dog.
Makes me want to print one with a giant red nose and dress my dog up as Rudolph
Extremely inspiring
This fantastic, thanks for sharing. So happy for you and Billie!
Great write-up. Cute dog.
I'm glad the nose recovered too!
WHile this is cool, I can't imagine that this provides a universal fit. It seems like they did a lot to tailor it to their dog.
Hi there, Great question! In short - yes, it does provide a pretty universal fit.
I originally measured only Billie because she's my dog and had a problem. But after helping about 50 other dogs, I discovered that the measurements work for most dogs with this condition. So far, I've only needed 2 sizes to cover all cases.
Of course, no two noses are exactly the same, and there will always be minor adjustments that could make an even more perfect fit - just like with any human clothing item. But the core design works well across different dogs.
I'd love to eventually offer truly custom fits for every dog, but for now, this approach has been effective for everyone I've worked with.
I feel like tailored treatments are a desired path anyway. Instead of having a one-size-fits-all I'd rather have a process made to fit everyone. While the "nose" would not fit other dogs; "make nose that fits other dog" seems like a valid process, no?
cool. i wish okie had been diagnosed with DLE :(
[flagged]
This isn't an issue. People frequently repost old stuff. Some get repeated almost every year.
Warning, pictures in the article might be unpleasant to see.
Serious question: should the whole internet have content warnings for anything that might be found objectionable by someone? This seems super mild. Maybe embed it in site metadata, and then you specify your preferred experience in your browser of choice?
>This seems super mild.
To you.
Never seen roadkill? Or a bird pecked to death by other birds? Biology is brutal, reality is brutal, this is very mild.
If you find these pictures distressing, you might want to consider consciously and carefully exposing yourself to more of the same to build a minimal amount of tolerance. I’m pretty sure it’s literally impossible to go through life without experiencing (sometimes personally) medical conditions that are significantly more visually unpleasant. I’m not a huge fan of the meat-creature-universe we all rolled, but it literally is what it is.
Yes; that's my point. Is there a way of making the internet better, such that this can be handled more seamlessly, so that the people impacted by things that others find mild can just...avoid it?
Not all internet has a landing page where someone can post a "trigger warning" (for lack of a better term). Nor should it: trigger warnings don't work, and may even be harmful.
I don't think it's going to work to aggressively hide from anything moderately uncomfortable for the rest of one's browsing experience.
Now this actually sounds like a good use-case for LLM/'AI'-enhanced browsers. Everyone has different triggers and YUK! levels and it would take an insane amount of time & effort to encode all that, and setup on each different person's client side, but an 'AI-browser' with 'smart filtering' (or whatever they'd call it) would likely be quick to setup for each user's (dis-)tastes and be quite flexible in recognizing the patterns and taking the desired action (hide, warn, summarize w/o the triggers, sanitize, etc.).
Maybe it already exists(?) but I've avoided 'AI-browsers', keeping my use in their apps/sites.
I worked on that for a little while on 2022, for kids!
Definitely an opportunity there.
Cool, but you used AI to write the article. Mention that somewhere.
If you have specific problems with the grammar, wording, or writing style used in the article, share those. Otherwise, who cares who/what wrote it?
Comments like yours do not add value to these discussions.
Do you have proof? A hunch? Quality issues that detracted from the article?
I despise AI slop, but this is a great article and a worthy cause. If AI was used, and helped make this article a reality, then the author did a great job of guiding the AI, and doing quality checks.
No 2025 HN thread is complete without someone accusing someone else of using AI or someone using the word "slop".
Bullet points? Must be AI. Em-dash? Obviously slop. Not only this, but that? Holy moly, AI slop.
(we ignore whether or not the writing is actually interesting, engaging, educational, etc. of course)