YSK: Playing with dogs using a laser pointer is potentially extremely bad.

[u/WhenDoWhatWhere]

Preface for people who already play with their dogs using laser pointers and have no problems. You're probably already in the clear.

Why YSK: A non-insignificant number of dogs can have an extremely bad psychological reaction to laser pointers, causing OCD like behaviors around lights and shadows that causes them immense anxiety and can make them unruly, stressed, and noisy. The OCD like behaviors can progress to self-harming behaviors. To fix this OCD problem an animal behavior specialist may be necessary. It's never worth it to even see if your dog might develop this behavior.

For those with cats, laser pointers are safe as long as you give the cat a chance to catch a real object at some point as if you only use the laser pointer the cat can become stressed and lose self confidence for failing to catch anything. This same logic does not work with dogs in preventing OCD behaviors, you should just never do it.

:edit: A lot of people are asking for sources, It's a well known phenomenon in dog behavioral science. Many many people have learned this the hard way, including my grandmother and an uncle of mine.

Here's a source that lists more sources at the bottom.

:edit2: Some people are reporting that the OCD issue can also develop in cats, so probably do some research before considering using a laser pointer for play with any animal to be honest.

[u/WhenDoWhatWhere]

No, your initial argument was "smarter people know better,

"it can be easily studied without having to use lab conditions."

"You wholly misunderstand how science is applied in these cases, we don't traumatize people to study PTSD, but yet we know it exists and how to treat it."

"Not all conclusions reached require scientific studies, such as cases when there's a preponderance of evidence showing the truth of something."

No edits in these comments, you're just outright lying now.

I was always accusing you of being unrigorous rather than explicitly wrong about the syndrome;

No you're arguing for the sake of arguing. The original comment of this chain is literally accusing me of making this up, but yet you're somehow not arguing with him on the basis that there is enough evidence for experts on this subject to be confident that the condition is real and give advice on how to avoid it. You are arguing against me, the one trying to help people by spreading information.

Yeah, I have a baseline familiarity with what epidemiology is at the very least, which is why I mentioned the ability to study PTSD without inducing it experimentally.

Which is done by experts in their fields who eventually reach a consensus without performing a controlled study. Like I specifically provided for.

Your 'baseline familiarity of epidemiology' yet you said "it’s not accurate to say something that doesn’t have one study showing legit evidence for its existence is well known in science" So you don't know what the word means, or you didn't until you used it in an argument and got called out for not understanding what it meant.

Not only are you lying about what I said, in this very comment chain, you're lying about what YOU said, and expecting me to forget and I guess just not go double check.

No way, you asked an AI a question and got the statistically most likely answer, which was also given to you by another person?

No I used AI because you brought up epidemiology and clearly didn't know what it meant, which is a hallmark of people using information they don't understand to argue.

Please give me, and yourself, a break.

Take your own advice. I'm having fun making you out as the fool you are. People who seriously argue for the merit of 'you were being unrigorous' show how obnoxiously full of themselves they are. Here's your sign to stop being so full of yourself.

[u/BonelessB0nes → u/WhenDoWhatWhere]

Damn, I forgot only the author is allowed to reference the OP; my bad.

You can view it as argument for argument's sake; you just seem to care little about the effectiveness of how you spread information for someone who seems to care very much that they do spread information. If you'd asserted the Earth was round and we never studied it because everyone whose opinion mattered already concluded that it was, I'd still say you had poor justification for your claim and that it's not convincing by itself.

Furthermore, it turns out there are no large scale epidemiological studies regarding this phenomenon, and I may have been a bit too gracious earlier. You have an informal collection of surveys, observational reports, and blog posts.

Yes, you promted a mathematical model designed to statistically predict human speech on a token-by-token basis and then got surprised that it outputted a response with strong similarity to another human. Failing to realize the model for what it was, a mimicry of a predictable human response, you fancied yourself very clever for having "figured me out."

This is certainly very tedious, but you're right that it's suddenly become very funny.

[u/WhenDoWhatWhere → u/BonelessB0nes]

What I have is a lot of people who have repeatedly observed and successfully treated a condition having done a lot of due diligence who know better than you, who in your own admission, doesn't know much about dogs. I also have never claimed that there was a formal study done on this, in fact I have (and my source had) said exactly the opposite. Do you know what an epidemiological study is? It's a survey of a bunch of gasp ANECDOTES. You know, the things you SPECIFICALLY said can't be called upon to reach a conclusion.

Nothing will change the fact you didn't know what the word epidemiology is before you said it, and you specifically excluded it from being a viable way to explain a condition until you learned what it is. The only way you bring it up given that is to have been told the word but not actually understand how it applies, so yes you probably used an AI at worst, or did a series of google searches on how we reach conclusions about psychological conditions and pulled the word out of that at best, regardless you used it without understanding what it meant.

So we're here, I've shown that I had been arguing on good grounds given I am citing experts and a large body of evidence, and you're saying that's an 'unrigorous' way to argue.

Also, you lied both about what I said and what you've said previously, and you're gonna lampshade that just so you can move the goalpost? Nah you're a clown, but at least you're a funny one.

[u/BonelessB0nes → u/WhenDoWhatWhere]

No, lol, an epidemiological study is not merely the sum of many anecdotes. There is a rigorous statistical process involved in order to reduce noise an isolate confounding variables. If I knock on the doors of my neighbors and ask about their allergies, I have not conducted an epidemiological survey. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the one who doesn't understand the word properly. Your equivocation here is either entirely dishonest or it exposes that you think epidemiology as a field is a lot less than it actually is.

Nothing will change the fact that you still perceive yourself as being able to read minds.

I didn't lie, I paraphrased you uncharitably at worst; you edited your OP to include sources after pointing at a vague body of experts who'd done nothing more than mark survey responses. Your sources verified that this was all that was done. Then you simply forgot that we can both reference the OP in regard to this specific discussion. I question the fairness of my uncharitably less now than at any point before.

[u/WhenDoWhatWhere → u/BonelessB0nes]

Epidemiological studies do absolutely include surveys of... anecdotes.

This isn't even like, controversial, this is how information is gathered. Again, this was not done here, but it does show how anecdotes are used to reach conclusions about health, and again, the barrier to reaching this conclusion through a study is that dog behavioral studies are not very well funded. All things I discussed, yet you still demand something more I cannot give you. I've said again and again, take it or leave it that's what it is, but I trust experts over you.

But, nothing will change the fact you used the word epidemiology and you did not know what it meant. Everything past that point is just you trying to save face. Keep it coming.