Labcoat!

Cute? Cute?!

A BSc, MSc and PhD and THAT'S your reaction?! Cute?!

Sir, that is a scientist!

Respect the coat! The soft, fluffy coat!

Awwww, such a respectable boi!
::boops hims respectable snooooot::
- That’s Dr Respectable Boi, hims didn’t get a phd to just be a respectable boi
- Now this is a person who knows science!

TIL animals may be allowed in chemistry labs. But then again, still remember my professor's being very clear that mouth pipetting is bad idea, to then show us how to do it just in case.

I ate cancer cells of a person who died 40 years before me trying mouth pipetting
- That sounds HeLa awkward.
My chem teacher was also the lab instructor. He would talk about how gloves are important because of the permeability of human skin. Then next lab would put a drop of dcm on his hand. Still not sure why he did that. Maybe he was illustrating it having a fairly low vapor pressure¿

I will say this is not enough PPE for a dog, especially if you're doing acid titrations or something, I can't imagine HCL is easy to get out of fur but it might give the dog a while before skin contact

Yeah, I'm hoping the image is just a cute joke and that the lab is actually not dealing with anything hazardous.
- My bio labs required ppe as well as the chem.
I would imagine that there isn't anything hazardous to that degree. I studied biochemistry, and I can think of a lot of different research areas that would include minimally hazardous materials (e.g. phosphate buffer)
- I didn't do biochemistry but I've just been taking chem 2 this semester and we've used HCL for maybe 3 or 4 labs, I dunno. I think the biggest issue though is that the dog is immediately below the table, presumably at her owners legs and In the splash zone

I've worked in enough laboratories to know how ridiculous this is. Leave the dog outside of the room. You can kill the thing with fumes and spills. Even in an undergrad class this is still so reckless.

Whatever you have the dog for is less important than the dog's health. This PPE is pointless and ridiculous.

Pragmatic. You don't have to do lab work to dress your dog in silly costumes. You should just do it because.
Yeah.... That's just unnecessary to put a dog at risk like that, whether service or otherwise.
Also, don't work in a lab by yourself. Have a buddy, even if all they do is sit in a corner and scroll on their phone. Have someone there in case something happens.
In the best case, you've maybe wasted some of their time. In the worst case, at least you'll have company in quarantine.

And here we see Professor Moonmoon about to espouse his latest theories on goodboi theory.

Bro needs full hazmat suit.

He looks like he has no idea what he’s doing.

PhD candidate
Just like my ochem lab partner. We just huffed diethyl ether on the sly and tried not to fuck up too much.

So the Lab needs lab gear while in the lab?

It's fucked up that service dogs are the dogs you most want to pet, but you shouldn't

Do they also need little boots because no open toes?

I always felt bad for the service dogs that had to walk around with bare paws in the chemistry building at university. There’s no telling what kinda stuff tracks around the halls out of labs on peoples shoes. Especially the ochem labs.

This particular dog is fortunate enough to have shoes

What a good dog.

I wonder - how exactly does this work?

For all I know, service dogs primarily help blind people or those with severe mental health issues.

The former must make working in a lab near impossible as most things are observed visually and also making an organized spot for a blind researcher must require thorough preparation and heavy assistance for every experiment. The latter might behave unpredictably, which doesn't pair well with a lab environment, and might prompt the dog to rush to support without minding the environment, amplifying the issue.

Also, dog is an animal, and while they can be trained to behave well, they are unlikely to remember all safety rules, especially in a critical situation where they need to focus on aiding the owner.

I might be wrong by all points, since I didn't ever see service dogs in a lab environment, and don't commonly see them around, but I come from a point of genuine interest.

Could be an Alert Dog. I have e a neighbor with one, the Dog's job is "Be a Dog unless daddy is about to go into diabetic shock, then calmly alert until someone does something."
Not all service dogs have super big jobs, some are just like organic blood tests.
- Interesting, the more I know!
  Might teach my family diabetic's cat some tricks, lol
There are many people who are very blind but not completely so (e.g. really can't see anything at a distance). They may be able to operate well in a lab environment.
There are people whose mental health issues are rare or can often be prevented with a service animal. Their "breakdowns" are likely not destructive anyway, so no real risk to the lab itself.
Service animals also sometimes help to warn that someone is about to have a seizure, so they can go somewhere safe.
- Got it, thanks!
I mean they can be taking labs for an unrelated major like engineering. Still have to do a few chem classes for that
- Fair, but I thought they may have some alternative route to get their credit

Doggles!

No hate intended, I promise, but I will never understand why people react to seeing any dog as if it were their first time seeing a dog. I'm glad we have them, and I'm so grateful for service animals in particular, I just don't understand the hyper-fixation.

Because the world is getting more grim dark by the hour so let me fawn over a dog in goggles for a minute and forget the pain dammit
- doggles
So you don't understand how it feels to find something cute? Or how people see other people as cute? Or as beautiful? Or as attractive? It's just another human like everyone else, what's the big deal? kind of?
Not mad about you not relating to the love for dogs, just curious. I feel the same way about human babies, but I'm aware that's something similar to when I find something cute.
- I do occasionally find people cute. But I don't fawn over every person I see as if I've never seen a cute person before. This does not match my experience with the current cultural evaluation of dogs.
  And maybe this is the crux of the issue, but I just don't find human babies and dogs even remotely comparable. I have countless lifetimes worth of conditioning inside me compelling me to love, admire, protect human young; innate feelings and instincts on human babies written into my very DNA. Dogs are an animal.
  I do sometimes find dogs cute, just like I sometimes find squirrels, lemurs, sloths, whatever cute, but it's not an automatic response and it certainly doesn't ever bring me to point of elation that seeing literally any random ass dog seems to bring so many others. I'm not even trying to suggest any judgement, if anything I'm just lamenting something that for my entire lifetime I have not been able to relate to or understand in my peers, which makes me feel somehow lacking, I guess.