Balls, Balls, and More Balls

Jake is a quintessential Jack Russell who usually looks as if he's got a ball attached to his muzzel. We've yet to find a ball he doesn't like. Molly is shy of balls. Before we brought Jake into our home she behaved as if she was concerned that a ball might hit her. That changed somewhat since Jake moved in. She still doesn't get all that excited about them, but she will occasionally fetch one that is thrown, and if she wants to tease Jake the old 'I've got your ball' routine works every time. Annabelle takes after her dad. She is ball crazy. EmmyLou could care less about them. If we try to get her to join in the expression on her face says 'don't you know I'm above that'. Bullseye will play ball sometimes and Gigi is basically willing to play with anyone, anything, anytime.

Jake really loves his balls and when one falls apart it's pretty clear that he is unhappy about it. So I am going to focus on durability.

Tennis balls are just the right size and Jake can play with one for about three weeks before he gets some of the fuzzy covering pulled off. Once he acheives that, the life of the ball is limited. Sometimes it's a few days and sometimes it's only a few hours before he's got that tennis ball in pieces. Annabelle is a different story altogether. She can tear up a tennis ball in about 20 minutes. Once she starts, everybody joins in and we've got tennis ball innards all over the place.

We've two little, solid, hard rubber balls that have been here for several months now. I noticed the other day that there is a slight tooth indentation in one of them, but I think it's still got a lot of play time left.

The ball that has been going strong, and somehow it surprized me, is a big (for Jake anyway) hard ball that has a light inside along with some kind of movement detector. When the ball is thrown or picked up the light turns on and strobes. Jake absolutely loves it. No wonder it is Molly's ball of choice when she decides to tease Jake. This ball is called Fetch and Glow and you can find it at the web sites I've linked to at the end of this article. We've had it for over a year. The only thing that has worn on it is the logo.

Summation:

4 Paws - one for Jake, Annabelle and Gigi for there love of them and one for Molly for her use of them in her tease game.