Rain three days running is harder on a busy dog than any walk, and there is only so much throwing a hallway allows. A ball that moves by itself changes the arithmetic: it rolls off in its own direction, bounces, rotates and generally refuses to sit still, so your dog does the chasing without you doing the throwing. Coloured lights inside keep it visible and interesting once the evenings draw in.

The shell is E-TPU, the foamed material used in running shoe midsoles, which is why it can bounce off in an unpredictable direction and still take being mouthed. It is springy rather than brittle, so it does not shatter the way hard plastic does. The ball recharges rather than running through batteries, and the movement is entirely self-contained, so there is nothing to pair with a phone and no app to keep updated.

• Moves, bounces and rotates on its own
• Colourful built-in lights
• Durable E-TPU shell
• Rechargeable rather than battery-powered
• Keeps dogs busy without you throwing it
• Sized for small and medium dogs

On chewers, and on nerves. There is a motor and a battery inside this ball, so it is not a toy for a dog who systematically destroys things, and it wants to be a supervised game rather than something left out in the room all day. Some dogs also find a self-moving, flashing object unsettling at first, so switch it on across the room and let them approach in their own time.

Who it's for: Energetic small and medium dogs stuck indoors on wet days, in homes where the throwing arm has given up.