Anybody tried an LED ball for their dog?
Ollie really, really likes carrying a tennis ball, to the point where if we leave the house without one he just stands in front of you, barking.
Trouble is, he sometimes adopts the attitude that the entire field outside our back garden is his territory and so he'll drop the ball, apparently under the assumption that he can collect it the following day or something.
It's normally possible to keep an eye on him during the day and tell him to fetch a dropped ball but it's not so easy to see if he's dropped a ball at night.
Sooo, with that in mind, I was wondering about one of THESE.
Anybody tried them?
I notice there are naturally luminous balls available but I'm not sure they'd be bright enough to spot if dropped in long grass whereas a ball with flashing LED lights inside would probably be easier to spot.
Also, to be clear, I wouldn't actually be throwing this ball for him at all.
It'd just be something for him to carry and he's pretty gentle and doesn't chew stuff he's carrying.
Trouble is, he sometimes adopts the attitude that the entire field outside our back garden is his territory and so he'll drop the ball, apparently under the assumption that he can collect it the following day or something.
It's normally possible to keep an eye on him during the day and tell him to fetch a dropped ball but it's not so easy to see if he's dropped a ball at night.
Sooo, with that in mind, I was wondering about one of THESE.
Anybody tried them?
I notice there are naturally luminous balls available but I'm not sure they'd be bright enough to spot if dropped in long grass whereas a ball with flashing LED lights inside would probably be easier to spot.
Also, to be clear, I wouldn't actually be throwing this ball for him at all.
It'd just be something for him to carry and he's pretty gentle and doesn't chew stuff he's carrying.
0
Comments
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nite-Ize-Meteorlight-LED-Ball/dp/B001QC0E66/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431369163&sr=8-1&keywords=meteorlight
Reviews on YouTube as well.
I rarely use Amazon so it never occurs to me that they do, at least, have a review service.
I've ordered one.
The only thing that can possibly go wrong now is that Ollie will decide that he doesn't actually like the idea of a glowing ball.
As I said, I'm not terribly bothered about throwing it for him to retrieve but, on that subject, it is made of a sort of hard, translucent, rubber so it's going to bounce like crazy on a hard surface and it's probably also going to get chunks dug out of it if a dog chews it or it hits sharp stone or the edges of paving slabs etc.
For carrying, though, it's absolutely perfect.
It really is seriously bright at night and, walking along with it, it lights up the entire path in front of him so it's really easy to find and collect when he drops it, gets distracted and wanders away from it.
On that subject, though, I bought the one that changes colour (rather than the slightly cheaper ones that are a single colour) and that has the unforeseen advantage of attracting his attention so he picks it up again without being told.
He drops it to start sniffing at flowers, it eventually gets his attention again as it changes colours and then he'll suddenly pounce on it and run off with it.
I'm not entirely sure yet but it's almost as if he's got a "favourite" colour and he waits for it to turn that colour before he grabs it again.
So, all in all, it looks like it's going to be perfect for it's intended role of not forcing me to spend half an hour trying to find lost balls at night.
Not sure I'd want to use it as a complete replacement for a regular tennis ball though.
It's too expensive, I'd worry about damaging the components inside it and it probably would end up getting scarred and mangled after hard use.
I'd also recommend the one that changes colours over the single-colour balls.
If you do go for a single-colour ball, the red seems to be dimmer than the other colours. It glows blue and green much more brightly than red.
Great review, ta (should c&p it back to Amazon for the good of wider humanity).
Tempted to treat him to one; any opinion on chewiness vs. the battery compartment? Obviously not to be generally unattended, but you know how they are when you turn your back for 10 mins
If you've got a dog that's obsessive about wrecking things (like my other spaniel is) then it's probably not going to last forever but it's going to take a lot of effort for a dog to specifically target the electronics.
Basically, however long it'd take your dog to chew a big lump out of a solid rubber ball is how long it's going to take to wreck this thing.
It is, basically, a solid rubber ball with a 20mm diameter "hole" in one side of it, all the way to the centre.
The leccy bits sit right in the centre and then there's a rubber "plug" tightly pushed into the hole with a "lip" on the inner end of the plug which locks into a groove molded into the ball.
For a person to get the plug out, to change the battery, you need to squeeze a screwdriver (or something similarly long and thin - but not a knife 'cos you don't want to actually cut anything) down the side of the plug and then work it around the edge of the plug while easing the screwdriver back outward again to dislodge the lip from the groove inside the ball and then gradually work the plug out.
For a dog, even if he figured out that the plug was a separate part, all that's likely to happen is that he's going to start gnawing at the join and, eventually chew lumps out of the ball and/or the plug.
Eventually he probably could chew enough of it away that he'd be able to pull the plug out but, IMO, it's more the sort of thing that a tenacious dog might achieve after being left alone with it for an afternoon rather than in 10 minutes, while you're answering the phone or summat.
Because the lip & groove are on the inside end of the plug, it's going to be very hard for a dog to successfully pop the plug out of the ball.
I suppose a dog with a strong jaw might manage it just by squeezing the ball completely out of shape but, overall, it's about as well-made as it could have been.
If that all sounds a bit confusing, there's a PDF of the instructions HERE, which might clarify things a bit.