# Tennis Balls and Hunting Dogs



## Chaser

Are tennis (or similar) balls a good idea to introduce to a hunting dog, or should the focus be more on bumpers and other training tools?

I know a lot of retrievers develop a ball fetish, and I don't wanna ruin my pup for fetching birds by throwing balls for him. Or are dogs just smart enough to distinguish between play toys and work tools?


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## clpeay

I don't know about training dogs on birds but when I trained my drug dog, I scented a tennis ball with marijuana, meth or whatever and played fetch with him. My dog associated the smell of drugs with the tennis ball. After doing this for a while, I would then hide the drugs and let him find it. When he did, I rewarded him with the tennis ball. Playing fetch with the dog helps build the dogs drives for hunting birds, dope, bombs or whatever you are hunting.


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## katorade

Good info!
You must have easy access to drugs :lol: *\-\*


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## 870 Mag

Put a tennis ball in a ziploc full of feathers for a week or more so it picks up the scent, throw the ball in cover and have him hunt it up. He still gets training and also gets the ball as a reward.


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## Huge29

katorade said:


> Good info!
> You must have easy access to drugs :lol: *\-\*


Yeah, how do we get some of that? For training purposes only, of course! :mrgreen:


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## TAK

All dogs like some sort of play time. It won't hurt the dog to chase a ball or stick...etc...

But you might notice that when it is game time and they get the taste of the real stuff they may tell you to go get the ball, I will go get the birds!

I had a dog once that would retrieve rocks... UNDERWATER! It was funny to see. Dogs are not all that tallented to dive under once they can not touch bottom....


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## Nor-tah

I wouldnt worry too much about it. As long as he is getting some bird training also you will be good. My dog hates tennis balls?? She loves birds though so I cant complain too much. :mrgreen:


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## clpeay

Huge29 said:


> katorade said:
> 
> 
> 
> Good info!
> You must have easy access to drugs :lol: *\-\*
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, how do we get some of that? For training purposes only, of course! :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

I have permission from the Sheriff and County Attorney to be in possession of marijuana,meth, coke, heroin ecstasy and shrooms. Training purposes only. I'm also the K-9 handler for the Morgan County Sheriff.


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## lehi

Better watch out guys! clpeay is writing down your IP addresses as we speak! :wink: :lol:


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## Packfish

How about the hard chewing on a tennis ball vs soft mouthing birds ?


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## cklspencer

I had a dog with a hard mouth. I took a good solid brissle brush added some bird sent and used it rather then a dummy. It didn't take long for her to soften up that bite.


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## El Matador

There are several aspects of training a retriever, and tennis balls are very useful for some of them. Useless for others. He needs to enjoy the "game" of retrieving, without that its very hard to work on anything else. Thank goodness I've never had to force fetch a puppy, but sometimes that's necessary if they don't naturally want to do it. I use a variety of things to play fetch with. My dog will invariably prefer one toy over another though, so when its time to play he gets his choice. I tell him to fetch, and he grabs his favorite toy. I work on hand signals and voice commands while we play and it's good reinforcement. If I throw one thing, I will not accept him fetching something else though. He gets told to leave it and then he's sent in the direction of the right item. 

Use tennis balls, dummies AND live birds and I'm sure your pooch will develop nicely. I would just avoid using the same thing all the time.


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