Tennis ball felt holds grit, and grit is an abrasive. A Border Collie who carries and grinds a ball for hours a week can wear the crowns of the canines and incisors flat over several years. Worn teeth need veterinary assessment, because exposed pulp is painful. No chew reverses wear.
What a Tennis Ball Does to Enamel
The fuzzy nap on a tennis ball behaves like very fine sandpaper. It picks up sand, soil and dust from every bounce, and it holds that material against the tooth while the dog mouths the ball. Enamel is the hardest tissue a dog has, but it is a finite layer, and it does not grow back. Abrasion removes it a fraction at a time.
What makes this a Border Collie problem rather than a general dog problem is volume. This breed will retrieve until someone stops it. A Collie doing ninety minutes of ball work a day is applying that abrasive against the same few teeth for an hour or more, six or seven days a week, for years. The dose is the issue, not the ball itself.
Two separate processes are usually at work. Abrasion is wear from an outside material, which is the ball. Attrition is wear from tooth against tooth, which happens when a dog grinds with the ball clamped in place. Most heavy fetch dogs show a mixture of both.
The Wear Pattern: Which Teeth Show It First
Watch a Collie hold a ball and the pattern becomes obvious. The ball sits behind the canines, gripped at the front of the mouth, and the dog rolls it with the tongue while walking. The result is a flattened, polished surface across the tips of the incisors and a blunted, sometimes scooped appearance on the canines.
Owners usually describe it as the teeth looking short, or the front teeth being level with each other instead of scalloped. On close inspection the worn surface often carries a tan or brown circle at its centre. In dogs that chew the ball rather than carry it, the premolars can show flattening too, though this is less common.
Colour change alone is not an emergency, and the next section explains why. What matters is whether the wear has outpaced the tooth's own repair process, and that is a judgement a veterinarian makes with radiographs.
Stages of Wear and What Each One Means
The table describes appearances, not diagnoses. Two dogs with identical looking wear can have very different radiographic findings, because the speed of wear determines whether the tooth had time to defend itself.
Tertiary Dentine: Why a Brown Spot Is Not Automatically Bad
When enamel wears away slowly, the tooth responds by laying down new dentine on the inner surface of the pulp chamber, walling the pulp off from the outside world. This reparative layer is called tertiary dentine, and it is usually darker than the surrounding tooth. That is the tan or brown circle owners notice.
A smooth, hard brown spot in a slowly worn tooth is often evidence that the tooth has kept ahead of the wear. A soft, pitted, or dark red point in the middle of a worn crown suggests the opposite: wear moved faster than repair and the pulp is exposed or has died. You cannot tell which you are looking at with a torch and a guess. A dental probe and radiographs settle it.
This is the single most useful thing an owner can understand about fetch wear. The right response to a brown spot is an appointment, not panic and not dismissal.
When Wear Becomes Painful, and What to Do
Signs that a worn tooth is causing trouble include flinching from cold water, chewing only on one side, reluctance to pick up the ball at all, new drooling, a foul smell localised to one area, pawing at the mouth, or swelling on the face. A previously ball obsessed dog who suddenly loses interest in retrieving should be seen by a veterinarian, because that behaviour change is often the first honest report of pain.
Please have any worn tooth assessed by your veterinarian rather than monitoring it yourself over months. Exposed pulp is painful and becomes infected, and infection at the root travels into the surrounding bone. Treatment is usually root canal therapy or extraction, performed under general anaesthesia after radiographs, and your veterinarian may involve a veterinary dental specialist. The American Veterinary Medical Association's overview of pet dental care sets out what a thorough oral assessment includes and why anaesthesia is part of it.
No home product, chew or supplement treats worn teeth. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Changing the Fetch Habit Without Ending Fetch
You do not need to take retrieving away from a Border Collie. You need to change what the dog carries and how long it holds it.
Swap tennis balls for smooth rubber balls without a felt nap, which do not hold grit the same way. Retire any ball that has become rough, split or embedded with dirt. Keep fetch sessions short and structured, with the ball put away between them, rather than leaving a ball available all day for the dog to grind on its own. Play on grass rather than on sand, gravel or dry dirt where possible. Build in non fetch outlets, because much of the compulsive carrying is about arousal rather than about the ball.
One practical structure that works for high drive dogs is three short rounds of ten to fifteen throws, each ending with the ball going back in a bag, rather than one long open ended session. The dog gets the same number of retrieves with far less carrying time in between, and the ball spends most of the walk out of the mouth entirely.
Many owners find that alternating fetch with scent work, tug on a soft toy, or a short training session reduces total ball time substantially without any drop in the dog's satisfaction.
Daily Oral Care for a High Drive Dog
Wear and plaque are different problems, and a fetch dog can have both. Daily home care still matters, because worn teeth are not immune to the bacterial film that drives gum inflammation. Brushing is the benchmark, focused on the gumline rather than the chewing surfaces.
For the back teeth that a brush tends to miss, a daily chew adds mechanical contact. Ark Naturals Brushless Toothpaste Extreme Clean is the firmer textured option in the Ark line, intended for dogs who get through softer chews quickly, and it is designed to be eaten rather than gnawed on for hours. To be clear about what it is for: this is routine plaque and tartar hygiene, not a response to tooth wear. If your Collie already has worn or sensitive teeth, ask your veterinarian which textures are appropriate before you introduce anything new.
Check the front teeth yourself once a week under good light. Lift the lip, look straight down at the incisor tips, and compare what you see with the previous week. Owners who do this catch the transition from smooth flattening to a defined centre spot, which is exactly the point at which an appointment becomes worthwhile.
Book an oral exam at every wellness visit and mention the ball habit explicitly, because it changes what the clinician looks for.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are tennis balls really bad for dogs' teeth?
Occasional use is not the concern. Sustained daily use is, because the felt collects grit and abrades enamel every time the dog mouths the ball. Dogs who carry a ball for hours show measurable flattening of the incisors and canines over years. Smooth rubber alternatives remove the abrasive element while keeping the game intact.
Can worn teeth grow back or be repaired?
Enamel does not regenerate. The tooth can lay down tertiary dentine internally to protect the pulp, which is a defence rather than a repair of the crown. A veterinarian can smooth and sometimes restore a worn tooth, or treat it with root canal therapy if the pulp is involved, but the original crown height does not return.
My dog's teeth are flat but he seems fine. Should I still see a vet?
Yes. Dogs are poor reporters of chronic oral pain and will keep eating and playing through it. A veterinary exam with radiographs is the only way to know whether the pulp is protected or exposed. Catching it while the tooth is still vital gives you more treatment options and a better outcome.
Does the colour of the worn spot tell me anything?
It offers a clue and nothing more. A smooth, uniformly tan centre often indicates protective tertiary dentine. A dark red or black pinpoint, or a surface that catches a probe, points to pulp exposure. Because those two look similar to an owner, the distinction needs to be made in a clinic rather than at home.
Will switching balls stop the wear from getting worse?
Removing the abrasive usually slows further loss considerably, and that is worth doing straight away. It does not undo the wear already present, and it does not address a tooth that is already compromised. Treat the ball change as prevention for the remaining teeth and the veterinary exam as the answer for the ones already affected.
Related reading: Ark Naturals Brushless Toothpaste Extreme Clean: Will It Hold Up to a Power Chewer?