If you see a tennis ball on the ground, your best bet is to stay far away from it and dial 911.
CBS News reported that people are putting fireworks into tennis balls and launching them into the air. The result is a giant bomb that explodes, but the real issue is that people are leaving extra fireworks-filled tennis balls on the ground without lighting them. This causes them to be land mines to dogs if they aren’t handled with care.
The police department warns:
“A tennis ball bomb is very easy to identify. It is a real tennis ball that has some sort of fuse sticking out of it. The tennis ball could also be completely wrapped in duct tape with a fuse sticking out.” CBS News tells dog owners and individuals
See how the tennis ball bombs are made and what happened when a dog picked one up in his mouth on the next page.
“Some of them are very effective and dangerous, and some of them don’t work, but you don’t know,” Jarod Kasner, public information officer for the Kent Police Department in Washington state, told CBS News.
“People light them, leave them thinking it’s a dud, but who knows what’s happening on the inside. Then a dog comes and picks it up…”
Washington isn’t the only state dealing with this issue. Apparently teens across the country are doing this with their leftover Fourth of July fireworks.
Back in 2000, a dog in Portland, OR had one of the bombs explode in its mouth. After the devastating accident, the dog was so severely injured it had to be put down.
