If the creator is reading this, please consider releasing the files under an open source license (such as gpl or cc-by-sa) so others can improve on the design and share those improvements.
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.<p>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.<p>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 interesting. Foxtails are pretty common where I live, so common that one species of Foxtail has the name of the city (Bromus madritensis) (Madrid, Spain). Not a single time it has affected any of my dogs or even heard about it being a problem at all. I wonder if it's not all species of Foxtail
This is so awesome! I actually think, with a few tweaks this can be a really great protection against foxtails.<p>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.
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.<p>> 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.<p>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<p>It's been a really harsh and long process to CAD this model, it's also really complex to change measurements for it.<p>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.
Not a dog person but I read the story, believing the autoimmune disease was a bit of a dead end. So great to see she was durably healed!
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.<p>Please consider the nickname “Tycho Brahe” for her.
Billie is lucky to have such a dexterous owner!
Let's Goooo! This awesome! Let's have more of this.
This is pretty awesome, regardless when it was originally done.
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.
You can do that with a standard muzzle
I got this for my dog. It annoys her a bit but I'm hoping she'll get used to it. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BF5C9VTY" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BF5C9VTY</a>
This is the promise of tech and the hacker ethos that SV killed long ago.<p>Thank you.
y'alls dag look like vincent d'orinfino in The Salton Sea
Billie is a good dog.
Makes me want to print one with a giant red nose and dress my dog up as Rudolph
This fantastic, thanks for sharing. So happy for you and Billie!
Great write-up. Cute dog.<p>I'm glad the nose recovered too!
cool. i wish okie had been diagnosed with DLE :(
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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?
Fantastic job!
Extremely inspiring
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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?<p>Comments like yours do not add value to these discussions.
Your comment was written by AI, you should mention that somewhere
Do you have proof? A hunch? Quality issues that detracted from the article?<p>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.
The article is cool; there's no doubt. But it could have been written without AI, and it would be better to write the article in human voice than to proliferate AI slop. Is it really so horrible to take the time to write things ourselves?<p>If you read this article and don't observe the tells of AI content, you have a problem (or maybe you don't, because no one cares anymore).<p>The tells in this article:
There are lots of parts that look like AI - the specific pattern of lists, the "not this but that", particular phrases that are relatively unlikely.<p>For example, the strange parallelism here (including the rhyming endings):
"Sunscreen balms – Licked off immediately
Fabric nose shields – She rubbed them off constantly
Keeping her indoors – Reduced her quality of life drastically
Reapplying medication constantly – Exhausting and ineffective"
The style is cloying and unnatural.<p>"That solution didn't exist. So we decided to create it."<p>"For the holidays, I even made her a bright pink version, giving her a fashionable edge." -- wtf is a fashionable edge? A fashionable edge over what?<p>"I realized this wasn't just Billie's story—it was a problem affecting dogs everywhere."<p>Sure these could just be cliche style (and increasingly we will probably see that as the AI garbage infects the writing style of actual humans), but they look like AI. It's not as bad as some, but it's there.<p>Everyone should be disclosing the use of AI. And every time someone uses AI, he should say "I don't care enough about you the reader to actually put the time into writing this myself."
No 2025 HN thread is complete without someone accusing someone else of using AI or someone using the word "slop".<p>Bullet points? Must be AI. Em-dash? Obviously slop. Not only this, but that? Holy moly, AI slop.<p>(we ignore whether or not the writing is actually interesting, engaging, educational, etc. of course)
Folks should be disclosing when they're using AI to write articles. AI style is garbage. It not only pollutes the internet but will steadily infect the writing style of others.
As someone who often wrote with bullet points, emoticons, some extra formatting, or dashes - albeit using the hyphen (incorrectly, I've learned) and not the em- - (:P) some LLM-generated text uses these things very liberally and much differently than most people did before. I didn't always have reactions like this, but after being baited by enough garbage search engine results and the like, I'm now often put off very quickly after noticing these patterns. And frankly, seeing it just makes it not feel worth it to continue reading and try to guess at what the person's actual ideas and thoughts are.
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Warning, pictures in the article might be unpleasant to see.