Many of you may know that my Malinois Toni and I have been learning Flyball. She's doing great, has begun doing full runs and gathering speed. Has no problems with distracting dogs running in the other lane. But....

A couple of weeks ago, we backslid a little bit and she wouldn't do a full run each time I sent her. This had me stumped for a while, but we discovered that she has a ball preference. I had bought some orange and blue Chuck-It tennis balls to help her see them when they are in the box- I wasn't sure she was seeing the yellow ones very well. Well, it turns out that she likes the blue and orange Chuck-It tennis balls over the plain old yellow ones.

I know, this sounds completely mental, but we tested the theory. We had Chuck-It balls in the box 3 times, then switched to a yellow one. The first 3 runs were perfect, then the 4th run she went over 2 jumps and came back.

Using the Chuck-It balls in tournaments isn't a problem, I bought a dozen for her to use. But my question is: has anyone ever heard of this before? Or is my dog just mental? I've never heard of a dog being color discriminate over toys before...

Thanks, guys!!

Her first tournament will be in March, and I am hoping that Paul will come and tape it for us so I can show you all my mental Mal

--Kelly

Maybe they smell different?

Hmmm, smell is possible- they were NEW balls where the other ones were slobbered on and older.

She was still 2 jumps away when she pulled off each time though- would she be able to smell the difference that far away? Or maybe she connected the new smell to the color?

Dear Lord, I've been reduced to wondering what a Malinois is thinking.....

Buy all new three colors and try it

I have 2 holey roller balls out in my yard....1 is blue & 1 is green. Both are the same size, thickness etc. No difference that I can see at all.

My female refuses to play with the green one....even if I take away the blue one. She will sit & just look at me & refuses to play.

Not sure what the reason...I am assuming the color. If you put them side by side, on the other side of the yard, far apart from one another, she will always run & get the blue one. Who knows what it could be. If my male grabs 'her ball' (the blue one) she goes & takes it back. (no fighting, here...he knows it's her ball & he has his..total respect from & for each other, for that fact) If he grabs the green one...she could care less. He has his own orbie ball that he prefers.

DOGS!!!!

Anne, both Toni and your female were born at Leerburg Kennel- maybe there's something in the water there

LOL, that’s pretty interesting guys.

Vince is a ball fanatic too, well one in particular. I can get some pretty good behaviors out of almost any ball but the Venus Comos ball really does send him to orbit. The sight of Venus kicks him into drive immediately.

And it's funny, it had a couple of slight scratches and was a bit faded and I've got to admit, I did misplace it a couple of times. I almost went frantic myself looking for it and thought it was crazy that I just had one of his highest value rewards.

So I ordered another one. Didn't even think about it, just ordered another Venus. We've got kind of a standing joke around here with the love affair between Vince and Venus so it only made sense...in the corniest way.

Hadn't even thought about a different one, it was all about me and the name. There's Mars, Luna and Sol out there and all different colors of course. My next order I'm going to put your theory to the test.

For some reason though, I can't see there being any change in behavior, but you guys may be onto something.

I often throw Chuck-It balls for my dogs in the yard. I've been buying the solid orange ones -- well they're mostly orange, with tiny blue specks. Supposed to be recyled materials. To me, they look like recycled versions of the traditional orange ones with the blue stripes. I also buy the solid blue ones that are called the whistler balls. In the yard, I usually have four balls going at once for two dogs, so we're all in constant motion. We all get our exercise that way.

The funny thing is one dog has a strong preference for the orange ones and the other dog prefers the blue ones.

A dog I had a long time ago had two heavy rubber balls, a little bigger than tennis balls, in his collection of stuff. They were identical except for color. Again, one was orange and one was blue. I don't know that he had a preference, but I could tell him, "Go get your blue ball," or, "Go get your orange ball," and he always got the color right.

 Quote: Kelly

Anne, both Toni and your female were born at Leerburg Kennel- maybe there's something in the water there

Ahhhh..that may be it. Or they are just plain crazy GIRLS!!

I have 3 JW king pin but ORANGE is the one of choise, blue and red are ok if the orange is not in seight