Man sends thousands of tennis balls to strangers in remembrance of beloved dog

In remembrance of the two year anniversary of his beloved dog’s death, a California man is making it his mission to encourage other pet parents to spend quality time with their dogs.

To make his dream a reality, Chris Sontag-Ratti purchased 100 tennis balls and posted a photo to Instagram, offering to send one to anyone that asked, in the hope they’d use it to spend quality time with their dogs.

His original plan was to leave the balls at the beach, but decided to post to Instagram instead because of bad weather.

“Some of our favorite things to do together was walking on the beach, down by the bay or ocean,” Sontag-Ratti explained to ABC News. “I was going to go to our favorite beach just north of Pigeon Point lighthouse and leave some balls with a note but it has been very rainy here in California recently and the balls and note would have gotten wet, or maybe even not be found due to people avoiding the beach on rainy days.”

At first, Chris worried that he wouldn’t be able to get rid of all 100 balls. Today, he’s trying to figure out how to buy more.

More than 8,000 dog lovers responded to his post.

“I am getting requests to send tennis balls all over the world,” he added. “I haven’t really made a list of where I’ll be shipping to but I have seen Australia and Ireland, Japan, I didn’t expect this and will do my best to accommodate all requests for a ball.”

While Chris leads a financially modest life, he says he’ll spend his last dollar trying to get balls to everyone that asked.

“I am an electrician apprentice so not a big money guy on the job,” he explained. “I was planning on spending my entire paycheck this week on shipping but looks like I’ll have to use next week’s check too. I don’t mind one bit either. I would spend my last dollar if it helped keep the memory of my Everything alive.”

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