When a dog loses a ball... what to do?

 I'd let her search for it and if its really lost tell her "Its gone." Offer another ball.When I tell Tootsie "all gone", she knows what it means.

I, the bad human, manages to throw Kords frisbee's out of the yard all the time. He would obsess and drive me nuts about it.

So, we came up with a fantastic solution. All his balls and frisbee's are kept on the porch, in a shallow box. If I throw one out, I tell him "bad throw, go get another" and he trots to the back porch and gets another. My neighbor all eventually throw the ones that land in their yards back into ours and then he has to "bring in his toys".

When I'm training formal obedience with Nikon, I often throw the ball or set it down, and then command him to heel and we move away from it.  He actually gives me a more intense, powerful heel when we move away from the ball.  Once I am satisfied with the heeling, I release him and he runs to the ball.  At least this way if I lose a ball I can still have the dog under control and move away.  However so far I've gotten all the balls back, we use a special ball imported from Europe, lol, so I want them back!

Truley

So, we came up with a fantastic solution. All his balls and frisbee's are kept on the porch, in a shallow box. If I throw one out, I tell him "bad throw, go get another" and he trots to the back porch and gets another. My neighbor all eventually throw the ones that land in their yards back into ours and then he has to "bring in his toys".

tiffy

 I'd let her search for it and if its really lost tell her "Its gone." Offer another ball.When I tell Tootsie "all gone", she knows what it means.

Sorry for chiming back in so late here. I did offer another ball when this happened, but she took the other ball and nudged it underneath the fence and pushed it into the neighbor's yard. Her way of telling me where to find the other ball I guess. lol. These are some good suggestions so far, though.

With Tims dog Shiner we went to a barn to remove some rats for a farmer, well one went under a concrete slab. She obsessed for a while then we had to leave to get home before dark.

 We went back to excercise on the property a while later and Tim was having trouble gettin her attention off that exact area so I told him to tell her leave it then heel away with her then release her when out of sight so she could get her running time, he released when we were far and she zoomed on back there, this was 5 weeks after visiting the barn in the first place!! Great drive and memory she has. Anyways I told him to let her quarter the spot for exactly 5 minutes more mins call her off then put her on a fishing line and we will go on our walk. turns out we didnt need to use the line and she just had to check the area one last time to be sure Mr. rat wasnt back. :)

Give you dog one more check then carry on and make the rest of your play excitiing with another ball or toy, I wish you luck!