Safety concern at private dog field

[postaged]

Yesterday we visited a local dog field, my crazy cocker ran into a wire fence that partially separated two areas. He was injured. Luckily he ran into the safest part of the fence, either side the fence had a line of barbed wire running along it. It could have been a terrible accident. I don’t understand why it’s there, i hadn’t noticed it before. I have emailed the owners raising my concerns etc but have had no reply yet. I can’t help but think it’s a tragedy waiting to happen. Are dog fields regulated?

First photo was what my dog ran into, the rest of the fence is like the other photo. A line of barbed wire runs below the wood

The injury

Ouch! It looks like it needs some ribbons or something attached to it so they can see it better, and obviously barbed wire removed from the other sections.

Sorry that your dog got hurt. I'm glad it wasn't as serious as it might have been.

I do think the owners should remove any unnecessary fencing hazard once it has been pointed out to them, but beyond that I wouldn't feel tempted to make any further complaint.

I had always understood those fields to be offering the safety of confinement in a relatively small space, so that the dog couldn't run off and get lost, rather than promising a totally risk-free environment. That is the sort of accident that any lively dog is exposed to on more or less any country walk. So unless the owners of the field have somehow represented it as a totally sanitised space, I wouldn't feel that they had been unreasonable.

You need to be very careful with private dog fields and make sure they are fully insured. I took my 14 month old rotty and my 4 other dogs to a “fully insured” field and my rotted dogs foot slipped down a gap between some decking and she tore her cruciate ligament clean in half. Turns out their negligence wasn’t covered by the insurance and I ended up paying £4.5k for reconstructive surgery. His “insurance “ wasn’t worth the payer it was printed on and re flat out refused to pay . My insurance company were absolute twats about it as it was private land not owned by me and so since then I don’t have any pet insurance at all and I just pay into a savings account and have a credit card. Vets bill apart, 5 years on it still £7k better off.

Why the need for actual barbed wire?! Surely just the wire squared mesh stuff, why would they choose barbed?!

injury looks horrid, poor pup! He definitely needs a cube of your best cheese... or two...or three...

What on earth?! That’s awful, OP.

I’d definitely pursue this. If they haven’t replied by tomorrow I’d be posting a review on Facebook or similar - bet they reply then! Your dog could have easily lost an eye if he ran into the wrong part and panicked!

(side note - he’s beautiful) 😍

I hope your dog recovers quickly poor boy. Although you did the right thing letting them know, most secure fields have it in their T&Cs that your responsible for checking the safety of the field before letting your dog off - I think you'll find they probably have something like this that you'll have agreed to do you can't really hold them liable. Hopefully they will make it safer on seeing your message though

Oh, poor thing! They absolutely should not have barbed wire there at all.

Goodness!
I run a secure dog park on our farm and take the perimeter fencing extremely seriously. Ours is 6’ high woven not knotted high tensile racehorse fencing designed not to nick delicate skin on impact. We have also added 2’ underground retrospectively to deter anything trying to dig in or out.

Our insurance insist on photos annually before reissuing cover.

To answer your questions, the barbed wire is there because it was existing and they likely couldn’t be bothered to remove it.

Potentially they don’t have insurance as a reputable company wouldn’t cover them.

There is an up and coming British Dog Park association but membership costs are quite high at present.

I messaged them via Facebook (privately) letting them know I had emailed them. I had a very short reply saying they had read my email and will be removing the barbed wire. I would have thought they might of enquired how my boy is. But never mind. I accept that it was our responsibility when we were there and accidents do happen. I just couldn’t rest without mentioning the barbed wire. Seems strange that I had to. Hopefully they will remove it. I won’t be going back to find out.

Are they a properly insured dog field or is it just someone making money by using a fenced off bit off land?

They probably don’t want to open that line of conversation as it might lead to compensation etc

Poor boy, can’t believe they’d have barbed wire in a dog field. Of course dogs will accidentally run into it

It’s probably not an insured field - I’ve seen so many of these “fields” on social media and most of them are just just random bits of land people are trying to make money from - they’re not properly fenced or checked by anyone official.