Dakota was an energetic dog who needed a lot of exercise so we got her a big, bouncy ball about the size of a volleyball. We weren’t the sort to go jogging with her or rollerblading so we looked for ways to exercise the dog without a lot of effort on our part.
This brilliant flash of inspiration came from a dog show on TV where a dog was happily chasing a big rubber ball around the yard. The ball was too big for the dog to pick up in his teeth. All he could do was try to pounce on it and poke it with his nose while it scooted across the yard leading him on a merry chase. We were sold. Dakota got her first big rubber ball.
We set her loose to play with the ball fully expecting a hiliarious show. She loved it! We’d found the perfect game for dogs and you could see Dakota’s excitement over this new dog game. We’d found the perfect outdoor dog toy!
The game lasted for all of one minute and we heard a POP. Dakota stopped dead in her tracks. She frowned and looked up at us with a big question mark on her face. Huh? What’s sort of toy is this? The ball flew off in a big whoosh till it was flat as a pancake then it dropped to the ground. Dakota poked her nose at it a couple times to see if it would magically reanimate and roll off for a new game but the flattened ball just laid there, totally inert.
Our dog with teeth like a shark managed to get just enough of an angle with her teeth to puncture the ball. Apparently the TV dogs didn’t chew their dog toys. The dogs on TV were dainty dogs that played nice with their dog toys.
I would have chalked it up to a grand $3 experiment but my husband decided the ball was defective. It had a picture of a dog on it so surely it should have lasted more than a minute. He took it back to the store.
The store clerk asked the reason for the return. He told her it hadn’t lasted even five minutes with the grandkids and he wanted his $3 back. She looked closely at the ball and said, “My, what big teeth your grandchildren have!” She looked him straight in the eye but she did give the $3 back.
