Puppy and play drive

[Indydog]

We have 4 month BC pup thats been with us for a month now in addition to our 8 year old BC. She is not obessed with the ball like his big brother but rather more obbessed with chewing on it. I'm sure its normal puppy behavoir.

 

When did your puppy actually start chasing the ball and becoming obessed with it.

[Murphys mom]

Murphy will be 5 months tomorrow and he is still into chewing more than anything right now. He likes to chase the ball a couple of times then is ready to lay down and chew a stick or whatever is handy! I think it has been about a month since he started cutting his adult teeth. I think chewing will be his biggest obsession until he gets through this stage.

 

Pam

[jfaircloth]

We have 4 month BC pup thats been with us for a month now in addition to our 8 year old BC. She is not obessed with the ball like his big brother but rather more obbessed with chewing on it. I'm sure its normal puppy behavoir.

 

When did your puppy actually start chasing the ball and becoming obessed with it.

 

We got our boy Gomer when he was 7 mos. old and he was at first completely disinterested. But we took him to the dog park a lot so he could see other dogs chasing tennis balls. Still no interest. Then we got out the magic tennis ball flinger (the "Chuck-It") and it was like a light bulb came on. Duh! All the dog park dogs were chasing balls that had been thrown with flingers! Now he's completely obsessed. So I would say he just needs to keep watching his big bro and eventually he'll get interested in playing along. Four months is probably a bit young...they're too easily distracted.

[Lenajo]

When did your puppy actually start chasing the ball and becoming obessed with it.

 

I sincerely hope mine never do.

[Leap-Year-Dog]

River is 16 weeks (nearly 4 months if you do it by actual 'months') and she actually started chasing the ball and bringing it back (kind of) at a very young age - probably right around when I got her. She was 8 weeks when I got her and I had the mini tennis balls and she LOVED those, and she would chase them and bring them back to my general area, but not to me directly. Then when she was probably 10 weeks or so she started to LOVE my brother's tennis ball whenever we went over there, so I traded him one of the small balls I had for his tennis ball (since he has a small dog) and she played with that for a while (only indoors though, with few distractions) and was pretty good about bringing ALMOST all the way back to me. Now, at 16 weeks she is starting to develop a 'obsession', if you will, with both tennis balls and frisbees. She still rarely brings the tennis to my feet though, she'll bring it within the reach of my Chuck-It though, most of the time. As for frisbees, she almost always brings them back directly into my hands (except for when there's some major distractions). Since I finished her main vaccinations at 14 weeks though, I've brought her to the dog park a lot and she has also gotten the chance to watch a lot of other dogs do it. I have to admit though, I think what she's doing at this age is pretty impressive because she's better than most of the dogs at the dog park at actually bringing the ball back to me. Today, however, she was very distracted and almost never brought the ball back when I threw it on land and in the water she only brought it to the water's edge, but not to where I was. She was so focused today on chasing these two GSP's around.

 

 

I just read over that and I realized I said 'though' a lot. lol

[sweet_ceana]

Twist is 12 weeks today and she chases the ball, pounces on it , and then chews on it. She doesn't bring it back... IT IS HER'S

[Root Beer]

Speedy was about 6 months old. I did "teach" him to be interested in the ball by starting with it in a sock. Once he chased and brought it back in the sock, I slowly hid less of the ball in the sock. Before long he figured out that the ball was much more interesting than the sock and the sock was no longer necessary.

 

Dean was 10 months old when we adopted him and he, like your pup, preferred to chew it than chase it. I used a ball on a rope to teach him, much as I did Speedy.

 

He's not really "obsessed" with ball, but he is definitely highly ball driven. It's very nice.

[Barb Scott]

We put money down on another pup, but whenever we stopped to visit, R/T was trying her best to be noticed. She was left over from a previous litter; we took her home the day we let her out of her kennel and she did zoomies around the farmyard with a tennis ball in her mouth. She was about 10 weeks old that day and tennis balls are still her biggest obsession. (Frisbees are a close second.) She loves to have one in her mouth and push another with her nose.

Barb S

[Skyler]

My youngest BC (Koda) started obsessing over the ball the first time I introduced it to him at about 9 weeks old. Once I rolled it he was done for. It took a bit to get him to drop it consistently but he has never failed to chase it or bring it back - he just wanted to play tug with it every time he brought it back. Koda is off the charts high drive though and I truly believe that has ALOT to do with it. It only took him about 30 seconds to figure out the Frisbee was the superior model and he litterally quivers every time I get them out.....and he plays almost every day

 

Zak on the other hand is not high drive although he has a good energy level and loves to run. He is more interested in bugs and critters. God save the flies that make their way into my house! He hunts them down stealthfully and viciously dispatches them He also goes nuts over the butterfly population in our yard. I have seen him jump probably close to four feet off the ground snatching them out of the air. Protein I suppose