We hired a field today!!

[Aprilwasverywet]

And saw our Husky running free for the first time!!
Took all 4 of our ddogs and saw a whole new bond. After the initial zoomies they set off round the edge. 2 slightly more ahead... Newest ddog in the middle hanging back waiting for the slacker!! All 4 enjoyed it so much. Only £8 an hour. Can't recommend it enough.
Stress free ddoggy walking was so great!!

[quote cupsofcoffee]I don't believe in the existence, in the UK, of the entire areas where a dog should be on lead outside of its garden as @cupsofcoffee stipulates. This is fantasy.

It's not fantasy at all. It's the law

On Open Access land and at the coast, you must put your dog on a lead around livestock. Between 1 March and 31 July, you must have your dog on a lead on Open Access land, even if there is no livestock on the land. These are legal requirements.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-countryside-code/the-countryside-code-advice-for-countryside-visitors[/quote]
So @cupsofcoffee just to be clear - where you live, you step out of your cottage and it is open access land all around you so you cannot let your dog off the leash - or is it the coast? My experience is that residential areas where most people live in the UK are not surrounded by open access land but perhaps I am wrong. Must be tough to own dogs in such place. And what if your dog escapes your garden?

So @cupsofcoffee just to be clear - where you live, you step out of your cottage and it is open access land all around you so you cannot let your dog off the leash - or is it the coast? My experience is that residential areas where most people live in the UK are not surrounded by open access land but perhaps I am wrong. Must be tough to own dogs in such place. And what if your dog escapes your garden?

I live on the Cumbrian coast - at the end of my road (less than 30m away) is a field full of sheep, and our entire town is surrounded by fields filled with sheep and cows. We are also five minutes from the beach.

Luckily our local beaches allow dogs all year round so I drive there to let mine off the lead, but yes, there are huge areas of land here where you must have your dog on-lead at all times at this time of year - either because it's open access, or because of sheep and livestock.

If your dog escapes your garden then you're considered responsible as the owner - just like if your dog runs off from you on a walk and gets in with the sheep or causes a crash, you're responsible even if you weren't there at the time.

So @cupsofcoffee* just to be clear - where you live, you step out of your cottage and it is open access land all around you so you cannot let your dog off the leash - or is it the coast? My experience is that residential areas where most people live in the UK are not surrounded by open access land but perhaps I am wrong. Must be tough to own dogs in such place. And what if your dog escapes your garden?*

I live on the Cumbrian coast - at the end of my road (less than 30m away) is a field full of sheep, and our entire town is surrounded by fields filled with sheep and cows. We are also five minutes from the beach.

Luckily our local beaches allow dogs all year round so I drive there to let mine off the lead, but yes, there are huge areas of land here where you must have your dog on-lead at all times at this time of year - either because it's open access, or because of sheep and livestock.

If your dog escapes your garden then you're considered responsible as the owner - just like if your dog runs off from you on a walk and gets in with the sheep or causes a crash, you're responsible even if you weren't there at the time.

We love a secure field for our rescue staffy. She has zero recall when there are other dogs around (we have observed this in a social session within a secure field - as a previous poster said, I could have wrapped myself in cocktail sausages and it wouldn’t even have tempted her back) and her play style is rough - she chases, barrels, boxes. She is absolutely useless at reading other dogs’ body language, so when they show they want to stop, she carries on. When attacked (not in play) she was utterly clueless and made no attempts to move away. She is not dog aggressive at all. However, as a staffy, were she to meet another dog off lead and attempt to play in her usual way outside of a secure field I can well imagine she would be seen as an aggressor and end up in trouble. We either hire a field for completely off lead running with us and the kids (and she does come when called), or let her off with a long line in a fenced in area locally when there are no other dogs around. On lead she greets other dogs politely when allowed but the majority of the time she is encouraged to walk past them without interacting. There is something about her that seems to set off every single dog in every house we walk past. We don’t know a lot about her history but do know she was hardly walked for the 18 months before she came to us so just hasn’t learned those manners that she needs. We are signed up for sole training classes to see if we can make inroads though.

I don’t live in Cumbria but also step out of the house onto open countryside within a National Park.
We have quite a large fenced garden. We use a neighbours fenced 4acre field. We pay for secure fields.

She’s lovely, but goes into hunt mode if she sees birds. Secure fields allow her the freedom to just run and run.