What Is Pet Ball?

If you ask everyone to buy a toy for their dog, I believe that more than 80% of the owners will choose ball toys. Why do ball toys become the first toy that the owners think of? In fact, it is mainly because dogs like ball toys the most. Many pet owners may have questions. Why do dogs have a special liking for ball toys among so many types of toys?

To explain why dogs like ball toys, we need to start with dog behavior:

Most breeds of dogs in the world rely on hunting to survive before they are domesticated by us, and they are good at catching live animals, that is, catching them in the chase. As a qualified hunter, they must have keen insight and attraction for moving objects. If they do not have the interest and ability to capture moving objects, then they will not only fail to capture prey, but also be eaten by hunters stronger than them because they cannot detect danger in time. If dogs do not have this ability, then they can only eat food given out of pity when surviving in the wild, and will soon be eliminated by nature.

In addition to biting each other with their mouths, chasing is also a common way for dogs to socialize. If you have a dog, you will find that when they play with their friends, chasing each other is one of their favorite ways. Sometimes they even play chasing games with their owners. This chasing is also a training for dogs' hunting skills, because they can exercise their ability to dodge and capture by chasing and playing like this. If you have watched Animal World, you should remember that powerful hunters such as lions and tigers practiced each other's hunting skills through playing with their friends when they were young, so dogs are no exception.

Let's take a look at the toy ball and this behavior of the dog. Are there any similarities?

Ball toys are more mobile than toys of any other shape, and because of their elasticity and mobility, they will derive a kind of uncertainty in direction change, so they are very attractive to animals like dogs that are good at catching moving targets, especially some elastic balls with uncertain directions. Dogs are more willing to chase them because they are very similar to the scenes when they hunt in the wild. Think about it, when rabbits are chased by dogs, their running routes must be irregular, so ball toys can attract dogs' attention and arouse their interest in chasing more than toys of other shapes.

The size of common ball toys is actually more in line with the standards of dogs' hunting targets. First of all, the toy ball is not very big, so dogs will not feel oppressed or afraid. They think psychologically that it can completely conquer this toy (the prey in their eyes). If you use basketballs and toy balls to amuse dogs, they are more willing to choose toy balls.

This explains why dogs find ball toys more attractive than bones when they move, and when ball toys are still, they suddenly find bones more fragrant. In fact, it takes advantage of dogs' keenness and curiosity about moving objects.