The Best Dog Balls for Puppies
Puppies need a softer ball than an adult dog, a smaller ball than an adult dog, and a new ball every couple of months as they grow. The last of those three is the one that gets forgotten.
Short answer: a 2-inch Chuckit! Air Fetch Ball is the best starting ball for most puppies - light, soft enough for milk teeth, and easy for a small mouth to grip. Add an Orbee-Tuff Squeak Ball if you are teaching retrieve, because the squeak makes the ball interesting enough to chase. Then re-check the size every six to eight weeks, because that is where puppy ball accidents come from.
The mistake that matters
Puppies grow much faster than owners re-buy toys. A 2-inch ball is correct for a ten-week-old Labrador and a genuine choking hazard for the same dog at seven months, and nobody sends you a reminder. Put a recurring note in your phone for every six weeks until your dog is a year old: check the ball still cannot fit behind the canine teeth. The size guide has the thirty-second test.
What a puppy ball needs to be
Soft, because of teeth
Puppies have deciduous teeth that are sharp but poorly anchored, and from around sixteen weeks they are losing them while adult teeth erupt through sore gums. A hard ball is uncomfortable and can damage erupting teeth. Everything you give a puppy should have noticeable give under a thumbnail.
Light, because of joints and jaws
A dense adult ball is heavy work for a puppy's jaw and neck. This is one of the few situations where the Air Fetch Ball's lightness - a drawback for a Labrador - becomes the main feature.
Interesting, because you are building a behaviour
Puppyhood is when retrieve is learned, and a boring object makes that harder. A squeak or an unpredictable bounce does real work here. Our fetch training guide covers the method.
Not a chew toy
Balls and chews are different objects with different jobs. A teething puppy needs something designed to be chewed for hours; giving it a ball for that purpose ends with a destroyed ball and, potentially, a swallowed piece of one. Keep the ball for supervised games and put it away afterwards.
1. Chuckit! Air Fetch Ball — Best for flat-faced breeds and hot weather
Sold variously as the Air Fetch Ball and the Breathe Right Fetch Ball, this is a rubber ball with large openings cut through the shell so air can pass through it while a dog is carrying it. For most dogs that is a mild convenience. For a brachycephalic dog it is the difference between a game of fetch and a dog standing there panting with its mouth full.
Flat-faced breeds already have compromised airways, and a solid ball held in the mouth blocks most of what is left. Our terrier cross could run and pant simultaneously with this ball; she could not with a solid 2.5-inch. The same logic applies to any dog on a hot day, which is why this ball has a place in a Labrador owner's bag too even if it is not their first choice.
What you give up is distance and durability. It weighs a fraction of an Ultra Ball, so a launcher throw that would carry forty metres carries maybe twenty-five, and once a dog gets a canine tooth through one of the lattice openings the tear propagates quickly. Treat it as a consumable.
What we liked
- Open lattice lets a dog breathe freely with the ball in its mouth
- Very light, so it is easier on a small dog's neck and jaw
- Genuinely the right answer for pugs, French bulldogs and boxers
- Also the better choice for any dog in hot weather
- Floats, and the open structure drains rather than holding water
Where it falls short
- The lattice tears once a dog gets a tooth through one of the openings
- Noticeably shorter throwing distance than a solid ball - it is too light
- Picks up grit and mud in the openings and is a nuisance to rinse out
- The lightness that helps small dogs makes it feel flimsy to big-dog owners
Verdict: Not the ball for a Labrador, and completely the right ball for a French bulldog. If your dog has a short muzzle, or you are playing fetch in real heat, the airflow through this one stops being a gimmick and starts being the whole point.
Check price: Chuckit! Air Fetch Ballon Amazon2. Planet Dog Orbee-Tuff Squeak Ball — Best for dogs who lose interest
This is the ball for the dog that will not play. Orbee-Tuff is a softer, grippier rubber than West Paw's Zogoflex, the whole ball is infused with mint oil, and there is a squeaker inside that survived far longer than the cheap plastic reeds in supermarket toys.
Whether the mint does anything is hard to prove, but the behavioural difference was consistent across all three of our test dogs: the Orbee was picked up first from a pile, every session, for the whole six weeks. Squeakers wear off in novelty; a scent apparently does not, at least not as fast.
The obvious risk is the one every squeaky toy has. A squeak rewards chewing, not retrieving, and if your dog already has a habit of lying down twenty metres away to work on a toy, this will reinforce it. Use it to build enthusiasm, then switch to a silent ball once the enthusiasm is there.
What we liked
- A squeaker robust enough to survive weeks rather than an afternoon
- Mint-infused material genuinely seems to hold dogs' interest longer
- Softer than the Jive, so it is kinder on teeth and gums
- Covered by a satisfaction guarantee
- Floats and squeaks, which is a hard combination to find
Where it falls short
- The most expensive ball here by some margin
- Squeaky toys teach some dogs to lie down and chew rather than bring it back
- Softer material means a determined chewer will get through it eventually
- One size only, so no option for very small or very large mouths
Verdict: A specialist purchase, not a first ball. If your dog trots after a thrown ball with visible indifference, the squeak plus the mint scent is the most reliable way we have found to switch the interest back on. If your dog already loves fetch, save the money.
Check price: Planet Dog Orbee-Tuff Squeak Ballon AmazonPuppy sizing by expected adult size
| Adult size | 8-16 weeks | 4-8 months | 8-12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toy / small (under 9kg) | 2 inches | 2 inches | 2 inches |
| Medium (9-27kg) | 2 inches | 2 to 2.5 inches | 2.5 inches |
| Large (27-45kg) | 2 to 2.5 inches | 2.5 inches | 3 inches |
| Giant (45kg+) | 2.5 inches | 3 inches | 3.5 inches |
How much fetch is safe for a puppy?
Less than you think, and the reason is growth plates. The soft cartilage at the ends of a puppy's long bones does not finish closing until somewhere between twelve and eighteen months depending on breed size, and repeated high-impact loading before then is associated with joint problems later. Hard sprinting, sharp turns and jumping to catch are the specific movements to avoid.
- Roll the ball, do not throw it. Short rolls along the ground for a young puppy.
- No jumping for catches. Keep everything at ground level until the growth plates close.
- Five minutes, then stop. Puppies do not self-regulate and will play to exhaustion.
- Not on hard or slippery floors. Laminate and tile cause the slips that do the damage.
- Use the sessions to train. A puppy learning to bring the ball back and release it is getting far more out of the session than one just running.
Balls to keep away from a puppy
Tennis balls. Abrasive on new enamel, and the cover comes apart quickly under puppy teeth - the felt and rubber pieces are a genuine obstruction risk. See why tennis balls are a poor choice.
Hard nylon or hard plastic balls. Fracture teeth, including adult teeth that have only just come through.
Anything with a removable squeaker or a fabric cover. Puppies dismantle these fast and swallow the parts.
Adult-sized dense rubber balls. Too heavy, too hard, and a full-sized KONG Extreme is wasted on a puppy anyway.
Frequently asked questions
What size ball is safe for a puppy?
Can puppies play fetch?
Are tennis balls safe for puppies?
Can I leave my puppy alone with a ball?
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.