Laser "designators" to me are just expensive LED lights. Basically, they're the same thing, except the laser is polarized. The price is the big difference. But ultimately, they're just a light...
Anything red or green (including an old fashioned incandescent lamp with a red filter) will be essentially invisible to the dogs, as long as you don't "backlight" yourself, and you don't shine the focus of the beam directly on them. That's a downside to laser designators. They're very focused beams, so it's hard not to spook coyotes. Incandescent lamps, while not as focused and not as efficient (and get HOT), tend to have a "halo" of dimmer light around the focus beam, so you can hold the light "above" your target, watch it's glowing eyes, then drop the focus onto your target when you're ready to shoot.
That said, make sure they're legal in your state.
1) Yes, it casts a beam (laser beam) onto your game.
2) I'm not sure if it is intense enough at range to "blind" deer or not, I would assume not.
3) I have 2 incandescent scope mounted lamps (Red), an LED scope mounted light (Red), and 2 laser designators (green). Frankly, they weren't worth the price. I could buy 5 or 6 of the incandescents for the price of the laser. The laser, for the same power supply, is more focused, and gives a longer range, but they're still in the 200-300yrd range at best.
Last edited by Nomercy448; 12-14-2011 at 03:29 PM.