We were so excited when we found the Tennis Ball Bazooka as part of our continual search to find the best dog toys. How cool does this look!! How cool will we look when we hit the dog park with this bad boy! Will this be the best dog toy for 2020? We anxiously awaited our sample to arrive.
First impressions.
The Bazooka comes in two colours; green and red. It comes loaded with two very basic bright green tennis balls loaded in the tennis ball holder. We ordered a red one.
It had a generous shoulder strap that clipped onto the “top” of the bazooka easily. Unfortunately, the pull handle on the one we ordered was damaged in transit. The plastic around the handle is really thin and looks fragile. This is a problem for us as we are always looking for tough dog toys.
The basic action is to pull the handle back and load a tennis ball in the front funnel. You are loaded, ready to shoot out a ball by pulling the trigger! It is really simple to use, although the loading handle is a bit stiff and you worry a little bit about pulling it back too far and potentially hurting the mechanism.
The Testing
Off to the dog park we went as this toy looked too powerful for the Dog Approved Yard. We got a lot of attention as most of the regular folks out exercising their doggos were keen to see this new toy and it looks awesome. The dog park is predominately a combination of dogs walking and chasers whose owners use the more traditional tennis ball throwing handle or the odd tennis racquet.
We shot balls out of the tennis ball bazooka until our QA Testers (Rocky and Woody), were exhausted. The action to load the Tennis Ball Bazooka is really easy and it took a short time to play with the angle to get maximum distance. With the sample we were testing, we easily shot the ball 15-20m. The trigger makes a decent sound to cue the dog that the tennis ball has been launched into the air.
The tennis balls supplied are very light to launch a long way but as you would expect not very durable. It only took Woody a few retrievals before those big jaws popped the tennis ball (luckily it comes with 2 or it may have been a very short afternoon). I do not think you would get much of a result if you substituted the supplied tennis balls with a more durable Chuckit or similar high strength rubber ball (too heavy), so this is really not designed for big jawed dogs that like to chew and would devastate a normal tennis ball.
Unlike a tennis ball throwing handle, this did not work well shooting at the ground to get the ball to bounce high for your dog to jump and catch. It is really designed to shoot a distance for retrieving.
A bonus feature is the end of the bazooka is designed so that you can pick up the tennis ball without using your hands. A great feature for those of us that do not like handling a ball covered in dog saliva.
Summary
Pros
- Really fun to play with for the Human
- Shoots a good distance for retrieval/fetch
- Shoulder strap makes it easy to handle when you are latching /unlatching leads or attending to your doggo
- The shooting action makes a good sound to excite your dog and cue that the ball has been launched
- Can be used one-handed
Cons
- Launching mechanism is fragile (ours was broken in shipping)
- Uses very light/cheap tennis balls so not suitable for big chompers
- Cannot really do a ground bounce of the ball for your dog to leap up after.
Final Verdict - Not Dog Approved ☹
We had high hopes for this one but in terms of value for money and versatility, you are better off with a traditional tennis ball thrower. This one is NOT Dog Approved.