The New Price of Bath Jingle Ball

The Story Of Our Ball For Visually Impaired Dogs

Dogs love to play fetch with a tennis ball, and we would go so far as to say that tennis balls are the most popular dog toy around! But it can be a real sadness for dog owners when your tennis ball obsessed pooch becomes visually impaired or looses their sight completely. Recently Price of Bath customer, Neil Martin got in touch to tell us about his dog Reggie (see photo below) who had sadly become visually impaired. Suffering with glaucoma, Reggie just couldn’t see his beloved tennis balls well enough to chase them successfully any longer. It was a heart-breaking situation for Neil and he became determined to find a way for Reggie to continue his ball games. Neil hit on the idea of adding a bell inside a tennis ball and found that Lahore bells, used for hawk training, were the only bells loud enough to be heard successfully though the rubber and felt layers of a tennis ball. Neil had tried inserting the bells into tennis balls himself but it soon became clear to him that this could be a hazard, with the bell occasionally dangerously spinning out. So his next move was to get in touch with us here at Price to see if there was anything we could do to make his bell balls safer for Reggie. We were of course delighted to help and got to work sealing the hawk bells inside some of our balls. After we sent them back to Reggie and Neil for testing we were delighted to receive by return a delightful video of Reggie safely playing fetch once again with his much-loved tennis ball.

We subsequently had requests from some of Neil and Reggie’s friends to see if we could make more of our “Jingle Balls”, and consequently we have decided to add them to our dog ball collection so that other visually impaired and blind dogs can enjoy them too!

Dog Vision Colours and Chiming Lahore Bells

The bright yellow colour has been chosen deliberately. Humans and dogs see the world very differently and their ability to see the world is limited in comparison to ours. Dog vision is similar to human colour blindness, with the colours blue, yellow and green most sharply defined - this is probably why they love to chase a bright yellow tennis ball, on green grass under a blue sky! To see how dogs will view our yellow Jingle ball we have included a photograph in ‘Dog Vision’ (below). You can clearly see how when viewed by dogs the red and the green coloured balls disappear into the grass while the navy and yellow balls stand out dramatically. Hopefully our colours will give impaired vision dogs the very best chance to keep the ball in vision during play.

Dog Vision vs Human Vision

The Lahore hawk bells we have used are made of brass and are well known for their loud, clear two-tone chime, cutting through the rubber ball perfectly. It’s a musical noise that won’t drive you crazy with repeated play, but your dog will hear it perfectly as it rolls across the floor.

Staying Happy and Healthy

We are confident that the Jingle Ball will build back your dog’s confidence and teach any newly blind or visually impaired dog that the world is still a fun and safe place. It will also help alleviate boredom, playtime being a highlight of any dogs day, and a good game with our Jingle Ball will help your dog stay happy and healthy. We would love it if our new Jingle Ball helps many more dogs continue their love of chasing tennis balls for years to come, just like it has for dear Reggie.

You can purchase our Jingle Bell Balls here

You can read more about caring for your blind dog here

You can read more about how to support your blind dog here