The Ball
Is your dog ball-obsessed? Many dogs are, but worryingly, many owners don’t know about the risks repetitive ball throwing causes – both to their dog’s body and to their behaviour. This blog aims to explain these dangers as well as to provide alternative games you and your ball-obsessed pooch can play together, that don’t pose these risks.
The dangers
We’ve all heard the old adage of ‘a tired dog is a good dog’ but a ball chasing session is going to do quite the opposite. Tracking, chasing and catching a ball is very exciting for our dogs and causes their arousal levels to shoot up. If we spend our whole walks letting them practise this behaviour, they wind themselves up further and further. This means that when you return home, far from being tired, your dog is now in a state of over-stimulation, unable to switch off and relax. The adrenaline in your dog’s body can take up to two hours to fully drain after a ball-throwing session.
Dogs also get a massive hit of adrenaline and feel good hormones when they’re surging after that ball. This feeling is very addictive and dogs can become obsessive about the ball – to their detriment. They literally become like a drug addict waiting for their next hit. And, as with all addictions, they will demand more and more of it as time goes by. This is at the expense of all the other natural behaviours that it’s important for our dogs to exhibit on walks – namely, exploring the world with their noses.
Repetitive, long-distance ball throwing also puts unnecessary strain on their joints, muscles and cartilage. This can result in long-term health problems like arthritis. However, it can be difficult to spot the early warning signs of problems developing, because the dog is so excited that they will carry on through the pain.
Alternatives
So if we shouldn’t be throwing the ball for our dogs, what can we do to play with our ball-obsessed canines? Here are some of my favourite games to play with both my own and my clients’ dogs:
Hide and seek
A fun and easy game you can play on walks or at home & in the garden. This game is brilliant because scent work is calming (and tiring!) for dogs.
- Start by asking your dog to sit and wait as you place the ball on the floor.
- Tell them to ‘get it’ and make a fuss when they do so.
- From here, start to move the ball out of their line of sight, so they have to start using their nose to track it down. Long grass, bushes etc are great for hiding the ball.
Boop the ball
- Start by holding the ball in front of your dog. When they boop it with their snoot, mark and reward with a treat. If they bop it with a paw, just ignore that and wait for a nose boop. You’ll need to spend some time building this up, then add a cue word like ‘touch’ or ‘roll’ just before they do it.
- Instead of holding the ball while they boop it, progress to putting the ball on the ground and using your cue word. Hopefully, they will start to get the idea that they touch the ball, but don’t grab it or pick it up.
- Keep working on building up their ball rolling using your cue word. Try to progress from little nudges to repeat pushes using their nose.
Herd the ball
Great for herding breeds (like collies) but all dogs can enjoy this game! This is great for teaching impulse control but places a lot more focus on you as part of the game than fetch does.
- Dribble the ball in between your feet so your dog tracks its movements.
- Kick the ball out for them to intercept once they’ve tracked it for a while.
- Build up how long they have to track it before releasing.
It’s also important to note that we shouldn’t be using tennis balls to play with our dog. The surface of a tennis ball is abrasive. Having a dog’s teeth scuffed by a tennis ball entering their mouth (or worse, having them chew on it) acts like sandpaper, wearing down their teeth over time.
Even the ‘dog safe’ tennis balls on the market aren’t safe; anything with a fuzzy surface causes the wearing away of their teeth. Rubber balls are a safer option but it’s important to make sure that your dog can’t fit the entire ball in their mouth, else this poses a choking/swallowing hazard.
It is also important to note that while there is a vast amount of anecdotal evidence around ball throwing, there have yet to be any studies conducted into the behavioural/physical impacts of playing fetch. However, there have been many studies conducted showing that over-excitement can very easily tip into over-arousal and an anxious state.
