Vets Reveal Why You Should Never Give Your Dog A Tennis Ball

My pugalier Rocky has always had a gift. His ability to sniff out a tennis ball anywhere is remarkable. At the park in thick grass, under the couch, buried in someone’s garden. For years, I joked that I wished I could teach him to find gold or truffles or anything more valuable. Once he found one, he’d demand a long game of fetch before chewing it for hours. It seemed like exactly what a happy dog was supposed to do.

When Rocky was 9, we took him in for a routine dental checkup. The vet said his teeth weren’t in great condition and she needed to put him under anaesthesia to assess the damage properly. We expected one or two teeth might need work. Instead, she removed 10.

The cause of the problem? Tennis balls.

The vet told us it is more common than we’d ever imagine. I texted every dog owner I knew that day to warn them.

Tennis balls are so embedded in dog ownership that most people never question them. They’re cheap, they’re everywhere and dogs go crazy for them. But veterinarians have been watching the damage accumulate for years.

“The fuzz on tennis balls acts like sandpaper when it contacts a dog’s teeth, especially once it traps dirt and grit,” said Dr. Ezra Ameis, owner of Paw Priority veterinary clinic. “When a dog repeatedly chews or carries the ball, that abrasive surface slowly wears down the enamel. I have seen canines that are literally flattened across the tips from chronic tennis ball chewing. This is not a fracture problem. It is attrition.”

Ameis diagnoses tennis ball-related dental wear almost daily, particularly in high-drive retriever and shepherd breeds. “Owners assume tennis balls are safe because they are sold everywhere and often marketed for dogs,” he said. “People are shocked when I show them smooth, worn-down canines and explain what caused it.”

Veterinarians even have a name for it: tennis ball mouth.

Dr. Stephanie Liff, a New York City-based veterinarian and practice owner, sees the same pattern. “I frequently see the crowns of teeth worn down significantly in chronic tennis ball chewers,” she said.

Her own parents have a 13-year-old golden retriever whose teeth are all blunted from his obsession with tennis balls. “Even though the balls feel soft, the consistent gnawing motion over time can wear the teeth down significantly, and most owners have no idea it’s happening,” she said.

Callum Russell, a dog owner in Kent, England, watched this happen with his Jack Russell, Gunner. “She would often fetch a ball and then chew for hours after her walk,” he said. “As she got a bit older, we noticed her teeth looked unusually flat and worn down, not to mention her bad breath.” Gunner was eventually diagnosed with tennis ball mouth. She is 11 now, and by the time the damage was caught, the vet recommended removing all her remaining teeth to end her pain.

Not every case ends in an emergency. Raziul Hoque found out about the problem when his dog’s vet flagged it during a routine visit.

“There was no dramatic incident. No choking. No emergency,” he said. “Just slow wear that blended into normal behaviour. I realised the surface isn’t actually soft in the way we think. It’s abrasive. Combine that with repetitive chewing pressure, and it acts more like sandpaper than a plush toy.”

Worn teeth are only part of what tennis balls can do.

“The most common emergency we see is an intestinal blockage, often when the pet swallows a tennis ball without the owner realizing it,” said Dr. Danielle DeBrincat, a veterinarian and medical director at VEG ER for Pets in Colorado.

A colleague of hers treated a dog that choked on a tennis ball and stopped breathing. He was revived, but a second tennis ball in his stomach still required surgery to remove. “These owners are often shocked when they learn the cause,” DeBrincat said. “A lot of them say they wish they’d known the risks beforehand.”

Dmitrii Malashkin took his German shepherd, Ernie, to an emergency vet after a night of retching and drooling. An X-ray confirmed Ernie had swallowed a tennis ball whole. “Everyone assumed immediate surgery was required,” Malashkin said, “but the vet suggested attempting to remove it with an endoscope to minimize the trauma.”

While the endoscope camera was inside, the vet found leaves, crumbled plastic wrappers and a piece of string that the fraying ball had collected at the park and carried into his mouth. Everything was removed without surgery. Malashkin said he never imagined a tennis ball could carry that much debris into a dog’s stomach.

Dental damage can be easy to miss. Ameis encourages owners to check their dog’s front teeth every few months. “Early on, the front teeth may look shorter or blunted. The tips lose their normal sharp point. Sometimes you will see a subtle yellow center as enamel thins and dentin becomes exposed,” he said.

By the time a dog shows sensitivity, the damage is already permanent. “In severe cases, I have seen pulp exposure requiring extraction or root canal treatment,” he said. “Dogs are stoic. They often act normal despite significant oral pain.”

Fetch itself is not the problem.

“Fetch is fine, since most dogs playing fetch are holding the ball rather than gnawing on it continuously,” Liff said. The issue is unsupervised chewing. She recommends dental rawhides, soft rubber Kongs, or indestructible rope toys as alternatives, and points owners toward the Veterinary Oral Health Council’s approved product list for guidance.

Ameis offers a simple test for any ball or chew toy. “If you can press your thumbnail into it and it has some flexibility, that is usually a good sign,” he said. “If it is hard enough that you would not want it hitting your own kneecap, it is probably too hard for your dog’s teeth.”

Rocky is 12 now. He has very few teeth left, but he still eats his wet food faster than seems physically possible. Fetch is still his favorite game, but now we swap in a rubber toy the vet recommended, and we don’t leave him alone with it.

It’s a shame it took 10 of Rocky’s teeth to teach us that.