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Dog owners, families warned about tennis ball bombs

As the Fourth of July approaches, local law enforcement reminds residents to call 911 to report illegal fireworks and homemade items, including tennis ball bombs.

At a recent community meeting of residents and police, someone asked: "How do you identify a tennis ball bomb?"

"A tennis ball bomb is very easy to identify," a police spokesman said. "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."

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The warning about tampered tennis balls goes beyond one community meeting.
 
A man who was geo-caching earlier this year in Everett, Washington, stumbled upon a set of explosives: tennis balls with fuses coming out of them.

No one was injured in that discovery.

A ball blast turned fatal in Portland in 2000 a man was playing with his dog.

The Oregonian reported that a man was playing fetch with a friend's dog when one of the balls the dog was retrieving exploded in the dog's mouth.

Police advise leaving abandoned tennis balls alone year-round.