I mentioned in another post that Keely has been going to work with OH for the last couple of weeks.  Basically, Keely and i have had very few walks together just the 2 of us for the last couple of weeks, and when OH walks her he uses the ball launcher pretty much continuously, which is great in that she LOVES chasing the ball, she gets the chance to search for it when she doesnt watch for it landing, and it tires her out, a necessity when she's at work with him.

The trouble is that this morning (feeling a lot better) i took her out to the nearby park with has deer, waterfowl, marshland, forest, cormorants, duck, other dogs and people etc and all she did was walk beside me waiting for her ball.  After a couple of minutes and repeatedly telling her "get on", avoiding eye contact and ignoring her (and nearly falling over her as she kept stopping in front of me), she would leave me behind and venture approx 10 metres from me, then return and begin the whole process again.  I made a point of staying at the park for 1.5 hours and eventually she took the hint and began to venture further out, although always stopping to check if i put my hand in my pocket (which i avoided as i keep her ball there).  Before this, she was gaining in confidence and independence, but her recall was still superb so i felt that she got a lot out of the walks.  Now i feel like she is just absolutely ball-obsessed (which cant be good for her either).

Looks like i've now got my work cut out for me.  Do you think it may be worth me laying scent tracks of some sort (somewhere - park, garden, forest, etc)? I intend to re-introduce the tennis ball as a garden-only game for a while.

One really good thing is that OH is getting back into mountain biking so we are planning to take day trips every weekend to different areas, so i can take Keely to a variety of different environments regardless of feeling crappy cos i wont have to drive.  Sorry for the rambling post - any ideas or experiences would be much appreciated.

Thanks Dr Wiffel.  Yeah, she's pretty good at the "find it" game, it plays an integral part of the walk although again we've probably concentrated on the tennis ball too much with this game.  Luckily though i've played it also with smelly food and toys, and named toys to find also.  That's a great idea for still keeping her interest but with things other than her precious tennis ball.  Thanks again!

I have used it for recall purposes when she's been playing with another dog - never even tried the whistle as i just knew she would ignore it (going to work on that ).

Another downside of the tennis ball thing is that she just sits and stares (for a long time) at the kitchen door where her bag of tennis balls hangs and gets herself very agitated, which actually worries me - she's definately obsessed. 

We were wondering if we could find a whistle that sounds like a kong squeaky tennis ball - we would have the most obedient dog on the planet (as long as we were willing to play fetch after every command of course ).  Although OH removed the squeak from one and teased her with it  which kept her full attention - not sure that would go down very well at hpr training though

Too funny of a string not to post my experiences. We (meaning my parents) had a dog when I was in High School (Heidi) that was VERY into the Tennis Ball (although, she would not even look at it if we were hunting). Every night from about 7 - 9:30pm she would find her tennis ball, and expect to play. Every night from about 7 - 9:30pm we would throw the tennis ball for her.

When we took her to obedience, she did fantastic with all the commands, until, the trainer took out... what else... Tennis balls . She rolled them between the rows of dogs (where Heidi would subsequently lose all control). The final test was the handlers (us) would go into another room, and she would "tempt" the dogs. If the dog broke, she would simply yell the dogs name, and we would go and correct the dogs. Needless to say, we stood by the door  . Eventually, she WOULD sit there, but she would whine, and bark. Hysterical.

Anyways, during this time, my parents bought a lake-house (where I currently dock-dive with Sadie, see other posts). We were on the cheap with decorating, so, for curtain rods, we used PVC pipes with Tennis Balls on the ends (covered with fabric). Heidi would sit for hours staring at the curtain rods, even though she never saw us put them together. She just knew there were tennis balls in there!