What? Tennis balls!!! Our goldens constantly have a ballie in their mouths. Could they be a potential source of cancer?Last Friday, Temple & I took Bailey to Pampered Puppy to give him his first two-person bath. He loved being double teamed ;-)
But you can imagine our surprise when the wonderful owner, after hearing about Kodie, took Bailey's tennis ball from his mouth and told us we should not allow these nefarious toys in our house. Through broken English, she warned us about the dyes and materials used to create tennis ball felt.
I immediately ran home, loaded with guilt, and hit up the Planet Dog site to order a bunch of Orbee Balls.
But after doing a LOT of research, I've come to the conclusion that this is a myth. Sure, tennis balls are probably not as healthy to put in their mouths as carrots. And they do get dirty and touch all kinds of things on the ground. So I recommend rinsing them off every so often.
But in my quest to raise cancer-free canines, I refuse to go off the deep end. I'll cook for them, worry myself sick about them, and blog constantly on their behalf. But I draw the line at denying my Boys their favorite toys! And I've found no real evidence to confirm this myth.
3 comments:
I have just lost my 4 year old darling Rocky to a cancer mass in his temple & jaw parts of his head.
He was addicted to tennis balls & used to chew them, he also got a small size tennis ball stuck in his throat, I had to retrieve it from his throat.
He was very active, where as his brother Snoopy did not even want to look at the ball & he is a very healthy dog.
We had a ct scan which showed it was a very vicious cancer pushing on nerves & his brain we had to put Rocky to sleep because he was in so much pain.
TENNIS BALLS ARE NOT GOOD FOR DOGS!
Please consider a different type of ball for your dog.
We miss our Rocky so much, he was our baby.
Julie Berrinba QLD 4117
We lost an 11 year old Bichon to Cancer a few months ago, and had no clue what brought that on and ended his life years earlier that it should have. Looking back, YES, we bought cans of new tennis balls for him to play with because he enjoyed them so much.
Now I have the guilt to deal with.
We got 2 more Bichon puppies to replace him, and they will certainly not get new tennis balls; perhaps NO tennis balls
I have 3 german shepherds one is 14. My Ruger was obsessed with tennis balls, just chewed them constantly. His teeth were just knubs.That's how I found out he had throat cancer.I took him to the vet to have his teeth checked. When the vet called me and told me I had to put him to sleep I died myself. My other two dogs just play with the balls and they are healthy. He was 9. Don't let your dogs play with tennis ball!
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