The US Open Is Underway. Your Dog's Favorite Tennis Ball Is Closer to Sandpaper.

The 2026 US Open opened August 23 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and runs through September 13 — 22 days, the longest edition in the tournament's history, with the main draw starting Sunday, August 30.[1]

Tennis has a warm history with dogs, too. At the 2016 Brasil Open, four dogs rescued from the streets and vacant lots around São Paulo — Frida, Mel, Isabelle and Costela — worked an exhibition match as ball dogs, trotting out in orange bandannas to retrieve for the players. Their trainer, Andrea Beckert of the Association of Animal Wellbeing, said the point was simple: "We want to show that abandoned dogs can be adopted and trained."[2]

So this is not an argument against fetch, which is one of the better things in a dog's day. It's an argument about the ball.

The felt is the problem, not the bounce

The yellow-green nap on a tennis ball is built to grab a racquet string. It grabs everything else too.

Dr. Thomas Chamberlain, a board-certified veterinary dental specialist, describes the fuzz as "quite abrasive" on its own, and notes that it picks up dirt and sand as the ball rolls around a yard or a park.[3] The result is a chew toy coated in grit — effectively sandpaper with a bounce. Over months and years of hard chewing, that wears the crowns of the teeth flat, a process dentists call blunting. Enamel goes first. In dogs that chew hard enough for long enough, the wear can reach the pulp inside the tooth, which is painful and can lead to infection and difficulty chewing.[3]

The Animal Medical Center's dentistry service has documented the same pattern in its own patients: severely worn teeth in a dog that chewed tennis balls habitually.[4]

Worth being precise about what this is and isn't. A dog who chases a ball, brings it back, and drops it is doing something very different from a dog who lies down and grinds on the ball for an hour. Retrieval is not the risk. Idle chewing is.

Ball size matters more than most people expect

The choking risk with tennis balls has less to do with chewing and more to do with geometry. A dog with strong jaws can compress a ball enough to get it past the back of the mouth, where it can spring back open and block the airway.[3] Larger dogs given the small balls sold for toy breeds are the clearest version of this problem — those should never go to a big dog.[4]

A few habits reduce it considerably:

• Keep one ball in play at a time. Two balls in a mouth is how the second one ends up in the throat. If you like having spares for a fast game of fetch, keep them in your pocket rather than on the ground.[3]
• Skip keep-away. Any game built around you not being able to get the ball back is a game where you can't get the ball back in an emergency.[3]
• Teach a reliable "drop it." It's the whole safety system in two words.[3]
• Size up. The ball should be too large to fit past the back of the mouth, with room to spare.

The pieces that don't come back out

Once a ball starts to split, it becomes a different object. The Animal Medical Center has removed an intact tennis ball from a Labrador's stomach by endoscopy, and has surgically removed part of a ball that lodged in a dog's intestine.[4] Worn balls — the soggy, cracked ones at the bottom of the toy bin — are the ones that come apart most readily.[4] The felt is a hazard on its own if a dog strips and swallows it, since it can gather into an intestinal blockage.[3]

The warning signs of an obstruction are unglamorous and easy to explain away: repeated vomiting, drooling, a tender belly, no appetite, and little or no stool. They may not show up until hours later, or the next day. That combination is worth a same-day call to a vet rather than a night of waiting.

Safer swaps

The fix is small and cheap. Fuzz-free rubber balls made for heavy chewers do the same job without the abrasive coating — AMC's dental specialists suggest exactly that swap.[4] Rubber fetch toys sized for your dog are the general recommendation from the American Kennel Club as well.[3]

The rest is maintenance:

• Retire any ball that is cracked, split, soft, or missing felt.
• Keep balls put away between sessions so the ball is something you produce, not something the dog gnaws on all afternoon.
• Rinse balls that have been rolling through sand or gravel, or replace them.
• Supervise. Most of the bad outcomes above involve a dog alone with a ball.

What to look for in your dog's mouth

Lift the lip this week and look at the big teeth — the canines and the large carnassials along the side. Crowns that used to come to a point and now look flat or rounded are worn. A dark or pink dot in the middle of a flattened tooth suggests the pulp is exposed, and that's a vet visit, not a wait-and-see.

Behavior tells you things too: chewing on one side only, dropping kibble, backing off hard treats, or a new reluctance to pick up toys. Dogs are consistent about hiding dental pain, so the change usually shows up as a habit shift rather than a yelp.

None of this means the ball has to go in the trash today. It means the ball is equipment, with a service life, and it's worth checking on it about as often as you'd check a leash or a collar clip.

Sources

1. Tennis Majors, "US Open 2026: Dates, Schedule & Full Calendar." https://www.tennismajors.com/us-open-news/us-open-2026-dates-schedule-full-calendar-858738.html
2. CNN, "Ball dogs show their stuff at Brazil tennis exhibition," February 27, 2016. https://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/27/americas/brazil-tennis-ball-dogs
3. American Kennel Club, "Are Tennis Balls Safe for Dogs?" https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/advice/are-tennis-balls-safe-for-dogs/
4. Animal Medical Center (New York), "Dogs and Tennis Balls: It's Not Always a Match," August 26, 2020. https://www.amcny.org/blog/2020/08/26/dogs-and-tennis-balls-its-not-always-a-match/