So I didn't take the ball from Scratch as I figured he would either drop the ball if he wanted to play fetch or tell me as I had Speak to Animals active. I thought playing fetch wasn't an option as I found a ball near Gale's tent and threw it to Scratch with no success.
Fast forward 60+ hours and I learn that you can indeed play fetch with him, and it all depended on whether you took the ball from him. Now I am locked out of playing fetch with the goodest boy in all the realms and it has completely killed my desire to play a game that I absolutely love.
Why is the ability to play fetch with your dog gated behind a one time event? You would think a dog would try to play fetch multiple times, or at the very least Larian Studios wouldn't make this hard gated due to how much players enjoy interacting with in-game animals. Please change something so Scratch and I can play fetch?