Fur the Love of Fetch and Forests.

The Dog Who Started It All

I’m Natalie Ball, and yes, with a last name like that, maybe this was always meant to be. My dog Tilly lives for fetch, and she always picked a real tennis ball over any store-bought ‘dog ball.’ While I was at Harvard, working as a nurse practitioner at a community center in Boston, I asked what they did with their old tennis balls. They told me, ‘We throw them out, and we feel terrible about it.’ That night I sat straight up in bed: Bark Balls.

What started with balls piling up in my basement (my landlord joked about ‘another Harvard student starting a business down there’) has grown into more than 50,000 tennis balls given a second life, shipped to dogs in all 50 states. Tournaments like the Dallas Open now set their match balls aside for us, and every pack gives back to animal shelters and environmental causes.

One ball, one bark at a time.