Animal Welfare Professionals

Greetings all,

We've had a recurring problem with balls being left here and there on the shelter grounds and the wrong dog grabbing the wrong ball. This week a dog grabbed a squeaky tennis-ball sized ball that had been left in a yard, collapsed it and swallowed it. Quick action by the volunteer and the vet tech saved the dog. We've got signs on dog kennels for thoe who shouldn't have access to a ball for one reason or another, but how to get the volunteers to understand that balls aren't just "fun"? Any ideas?

Thanks!

#Behavior,TrainingandEnrichment

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Eudora Watson
Animal Enrichment and Volunteer Coordinator
Potsdam Humane Society Shelter
New York
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We had a similar bad experience with a toy, but the dog ended up needing surgery. Our volunteer turn-over rate is high and that makes training hard. To be safe, I throw out all the donated toys that could be unsafe for a large dog, so we don't have any thin rubber, squeaky small dog toys. 

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Dina Li
Shelter staff
Danbury animal welfare society
CT
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We have had a problem with toys that have button batteries in them. I just throw them away. We are lucky that our volunteers are pretty on top of putting balls away, but it's sometimes hard to find them all in the grass. I try to keep the orange rubber ones and not the regular tennis balls, but of course, that's not 100%. Other than that, we have the signage for dogs that might swallow a ball or ingest toys, so if we take them out, we walk them around the area to see if they find any toys before letting them off leash. Sorry I can't be more help!

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Stephanie Lenny
Behavioral Coordinator
Brown County Human Society
IN
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