'Like sandpaper'- Carlow dog owners alert on risks of playing fetch with tennis balls
Tennis balls can choke and kill a dog but they can also cause damage to the dog in other ways too
One of Ireland’s most well-known vets was on Newstalk’s The Hard Shoulder recently warning dog owners against using tennis balls to play fetch with their dog.
On The Hard Shoulder, Peter Weatherburn, also known as ‘Pete the Vet’ has urged pet owners in Carlow to use an alternative when playing fetch.
“We're just taking the risk away from dogs. Nothing wrong with chasing an occasional tennis ball - some dogs do it so repetitively.
“It's like you get a kind of repetitive stress injury on their teeth because it's repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.
“And the point is that there are much, much better ways of doing it.”
Mr Weatherburn said on The Hard Shoulder that that over a long period of time a tennis balls acts “like sandpaper” in their mouth.
“It wears down the protective enamel of the teeth, exposing the pulp cavity,” he explained.
“That then causes them real pain - nobody wants that.”
Even more seriously, Mr Weatherburn said a dog could swallow a ball and choke to death.
“If you give a big dog a tennis ball, if the ball is big enough that it can fit past the front premolars when the mouth is fully open, then there's a really serious risk that it actually can go and inhale it,” he said.
“Then it's stuck at the back of the mouth and you can't get it”.