Tennis ball that is.

When we're in the house, it's a struggle to keep his slobbery tennis ball out of our faces, off the keyboard, out of our dinner, out of the toilet. He's a year old Lab so very playful and we love him to bits.

At the park is a whole other story. We throw the ball, he races as fast as his legs will carry him. He skids through the mud and tail frantically waving in a cloud of ears and saliva he bounds back all excited and then... nothing. If we bend down, he runs back a few metres, if we stand up, he comes back, sits just a few inches away looking up at us.

I know what he wants to play but when the ball is that slimy, it's very hard to win so for the last few weeks, I've just refused to play that game. I started just standing still and ignoring him until he drops it. To start with, it worked. I reinforced it with the command 'drop', praised him and continued playing fetch. Recently he's taking longer and longer. Today I stood in the rain motionless for 10 minutes before he finally gave up and dropped it but he just sits there.

I'm anxious to get him as tired as possible. With winter setting in, we're getting less time out between rain storms so the more exercise he gets in those hour long bursts, the better.

With a ball to play with, he doesn't respond to treats or food at all even when hungry, he doesn't respond in the right way to another ball (he will chase a second then choose one to bring back leaving the other wherever it landed) and I've no idea how Cesar 'claims' a ball which a dog is holding. Sometimes if I get a chance to grab the ball, I can stare him into letting go but getting that chance is not easy.

Any ideas?