Affiliate Disclosure
The short version: we earn commission when you buy through our links, at no extra cost to you, and no brand pays for placement.
Amazon Associates
bestdogball.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and the Amazon EU Associates Programme, affiliate advertising programmes designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
In plain English
Most product links on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, Amazon pays us a small percentage of the sale. You pay exactly the same price you would have paid anyway - the commission comes out of Amazon's margin, not your pocket.
Links are routed to the Amazon storefront closest to you, so a UK visitor goes to amazon.co.uk and a US visitor to amazon.com. That is for your convenience, not ours.
What money does not buy on this site
- No brand has ever paid to appear here, to be ranked higher, or to have a negative comment removed.
- We buy the products. Every ball reviewed was bought at retail price. We do not accept free samples, because a free sample is a relationship and relationships are hard to be rude about.
- No manufacturer sees a review before publication.
- Rankings are not commission-weighted. Our top recommendation is the cheapest ball on the list, which earns us less per sale than any other product we could have put there.
Prices
We do not publish specific prices. Amazon's terms require live pricing drawn from their API, and hardcoded prices go stale and mislead people. Instead we use broad bands, and you see the real current price when you click through. If a price looks different from what you expected, the price on Amazon is the correct one.
Where you should be sceptical of us
We think readers deserve this bit. We are paid when you buy something, which creates a structural bias toward recommending purchases. Two ways we try to counter it: every review carries a "where it falls short" section, and we tell you when not to buy - our launcher guide argues against automatic launchers for many dogs, and our light-up ball guide suggests a head torch instead of the product.
You should still read this site as one input rather than the final word. Cross-check against your vet for anything with a safety dimension, and against your own dog, who is the actual authority on which ball it likes.
Other disclosures
We may add other affiliate programmes over time - pet retailers and manufacturer direct programmes. The same rules will apply and this page will be updated to say so.
We do not run display advertising. We do not sell or share your data. See our privacy policy.
Amazon, Amazon.co.uk and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Questions about any of this: get in touch.
How we test
Every ball on this site is bought at full retail price with our own money. Nothing here is a sample sent by a brand, and no manufacturer sees a review before it is published.
Testing runs over a minimum of six weeks with four dogs chosen for genuinely different jobs:
- A Labrador who fetches hard but chews gently - the volume tester. If a ball survives him it has survived a lot of repetitions.
- A Staffordshire Bull Terrier who destroys most things within a fortnight. He decides every durability verdict on this site; the other three rarely mark a ball at all.
- A whippet who runs flat out and catches in the air. She is the reason we care about how a ball behaves in flight rather than just on the ground - whether it tumbles or flies true, whether it is light enough to catch cleanly at speed without jarring, and whether the surface gives enough grip for a dog to take it out of the air rather than bat it away. A ball that is fine to pick up off the grass can be genuinely unpleasant to catch, and nothing else in the group would have shown us that.
- A twelve-kilo terrier cross used to check whether smaller mouths can carry a ball comfortably, and whether the weight is manageable over a full walk.
We record bounce height from a two-metre drop onto paving, whether the ball floats in still water and how much of it sits above the waterline, throwing distance with a standard launcher, catchability in flight, and the physical state of the ball at two, four and six weeks. Balls that split, delaminate or lose their shape inside six weeks do not make the recommendations regardless of brand.
Where we have not tested something, we say so on the page rather than inventing a verdict. That currently applies to the automatic ball launchers, the light-up ball category, and some of the squeaky and treat-dispensing products - each carries a visible notice.