Laser pointers

During the quest to put up my new bookshelf, I found the laser pointer that I had bought to play with Tierce. I figured that I might as well see if it still worked, so I turned it on. As luck would have it, Tierce saw it and immediately pounced at it. This was not the problem. The problem was, after less than 30 seconds of exposure to this little red light, he was running around the living room looking for it - for an hour. I definitely urge anyone who has one of these things to rethink playing with their Shibas with them.

I'm not alone. A Google search for "laser pointers dogs OCD" nets thousands of pages. This page particularly warns against using laser pointers as play or training aids because of the behaviour that they encourage.

I notice that Tierce also chases shadows when we walk at night. It's not appearing to be a manifestation of OCD. Apparently he can understand that shadows come and go, but the light from the laser pointer appeared to have a weird effect on his mind. He even spent 10 minutes staring at my boyfriend's computer tower, at the blue light that indicated its functioning status. A blinking cycling light from MEC elicited only an initial period of excitement, followed by boredom. Kind of like a crack junkie being given a big chocolate bar. Nice, but nothing special and he doesn't really want to eat anyway.

Sorry Tierce, no more little red lights for you.