It’s pretty fun to do the fetch game with your dog, and what better thing to throw than a tennis ball, right? Well, just imagine the toxins in a typical tennis ball and it doesn’t take long to speculate on some of the things that can go wrong. Here are a few:
- It is becoming more widely reported that dogs who like to obsessively play fetch… I’m looking at you all Labrador Retrievers … and who routinely bite, chew or carry a tennis ball in their mouths for long lengths of time are getting mouth cancer at early dog ages. My dog in-law Layla recently died from this and she was only 7 years old. But she had a tennis ball in her mouth every day of her life. She led an otherwise healthy life and the only thing that really stuck out as a cause of death was the daily chewing of the tennis balls. My neighbor’s Rottweiler also got mouth cancer and he was only 5 years old. Again, he was a veteran tennis-ball fetcher and his owner suddenly became aware of the cancer risk when it was too late. So he told my owner, and now I’m telling you!
- Dogs who like to chew tennis balls to pieces also tend to swallow chunks of the ball. I actually like to do this, and I get a guilty look on my face when I try to chew a ball to pieces with my back to my owner and he catches me. I guess he knows better than me about this, but those things are fun to destroy with my teeth! I can’t help it. But the the tennis ball pieces are a choking hazard and can cause intestinal blockages on top of being extremely toxic if eaten on a regular basis.
In 2007, an Illinois dog owner hired a laboratory to test the lead content in 24 of her Shelties’ chew toys. The tests revealed that one of her dogs’ tennis balls contained 335.7 parts per million (ppm) of lead, an amount that, at the time, fell far below the levels allowed in children’s toys. Today, however, that amount exceeds the 300 ppm federal standard for lead in children’s toys. The lead could be the culprit on top of whatever possibly toxic chemicals remain in the tennis ball core.
The bottom line is, OWNERS, PLEASE LOOK FOR SOMETHING NON-TOXIC TO PLAY FETCH WITH. TENNIS BALLS ARE MAKING YOUR DOGS SICK!!!
One last suggestion… if your dog does get any form of cancer and you catch it early, we have heard miraculous reports of TURMERIC GOLDEN PASTE turning the cancer around in dogs. At the end of this article is a great recipe for making it yourself. Good luck!