How Often Should You Check Your Secure Dog Field?

This is one where I’m not going to beat about the bush.

TAKEAWAY: Check the field daily before opening.
WHY: most damage happens overnight (digging, gates, vandalism, weather).
BONUS: keep a quick photo log – it protects you if anything kicks off.

You must check your fields daily before your first booking – for both your customers and to protect your business. If you don’t do it, please read on because I hope by the end of this, I’ve convinced you that it’s absolutely critical.

When I visit a dog field for the first time, I often book the first session available so I can get an impression of what the new day brings and see if the field has been checked.

I can tell if it has, and so can your other customers.

Confession: I didn’t use to check our fences first thing in the morning. At our first field, I checked sometime during the day (when it was convenient) and last thing at night.

The benefit of many years of immersing myself in all things dog fields is that I’ve educated myself and I shudder at some of the decisions we made back then – even with the benefit of in-depth research and over 50 visits to other fields before we opened. If there was a mistake to make, trust me, we made it.

Thankfully we never suffered any consequences – we got some brilliant stories but no escapees. I’d never have forgiven myself.

So here I am, gently wagging my finger at you if you operate a dog field and you’re not pacing the perimeter every morning before your first customer comes in.

 Overkill? No. And here’s why.

10 Reasons You Should Check Your Field Daily Before Your First Booking

1. Delivering on your promise

When someone books your field, you make a contract with them. Irrespective of what you have in your terms and conditions or caveats you make, it is a fair assumption for a customer to make that they are entering into a ‘safe’ environment.

The vast majority of things that damage fences and gates and dig holes will do so between the time your last customer leaves, and the next one arrives the following day.

If you have not checked the security of your facility before that first visitor, how can you, hand on heart say that it is safe for them to use?

2. Keeping Things Neat and Tidy

Whether you like it or not, part of running a dog field is picking up dog poo, fixing things customers have broken, and tidying the ‘playroom’. Whilst you’re checking your fences, spending 5 minutes making sure the place is spick and span is time well spent. The annoying thing is that people don’t notice when you do it, only when you don’t!

3. Loose or broken kit

Toys, agility bits, screws, splintered timber, snapped rope – it’s the boring stuff that hurts dogs and people and creates injury claims.

4. Poo Bins

• Empty poo bins at least daily (and more often if you’re busy or it’s hot).
• Keep the big industrial bin out of customer view for reasons we don’t need to describe at lunchtime.

If you need to keep the bin nearby, I recommend a wheely bin shed – they’re relatively inexpensive, and you can put a lock on for security. We suggest keeping these bins well away from the field area so that contractors don’t disturb your customers when they come by.

Members note: If you’re upgrading your waste setup, the wheelie bin shed shortlist is in the ‘Field Tested’ section of the members area – we’ve already done the trawl so you don’t have to.

5. Eliminate Issues Before They Happen

If you’re new to dog field ownership and haven’t been through a winter, you won’t yet know how reliable your lock is!

If you are the first person in each morning, any defrosting or lubricating of the lock that’s required can be done before the inevitable phone call from an irate customer who can’t get in (try this stuff, it’s magic!)

The same applies to dropped gates; flooded car parks; frozen taps; unexpected road closures; great big holes… this list goes on.

Getting up and at it means that you are forewarned of any issues your customers might face and can either fix them or let them know of any measure they need to take.

6. Covering Your Back

This one is simple – you are running a commercial operation. You have a responsibility and duty of care to your customers and should anything bad occur, every procedure you have in place; every item in your field; and every operational thing you do or don’t do will be scrutinised – this could be by insurers, police and probably government regulators in the future.

Keep a simple record:

• Date/time of check
• Initials
• Photo of anything found/fixed

Even a private WhatsApp group with yourself works as a timestamped log.

Members note: Our ‘Field Guard’ App is in beta testing with a few game field owners right now – you’ll have access to the field-tested version in the new year!

Top Tip: Never forget you are running a business.

7. Gate Left Open

I was speaking to a distraught dog field operator a few years back. They had a muntjac deer killed in their field by a dog. The dog owner was rightfully upset and furious – the reason they use secure fields is that their dog has a high prey drive, and all the hard training they had been doing was undone in an instant.

What happened?

It’s really simple – reviewing the CCTV, the last user had left the outside gate open overnight. The field owner doesn’t check in the morning so not only was the gate unlocked and open, but there was a 4-legged guest in the field.

These were compounded issues that the customer should never have known about because they should have been dealt with before they arrived. The gates should not have been open, but even if they were, the deer should have been evicted before opening.

A painful lesson and a regular customer lost.

7. Vandalism

Thankfully this is really uncommon but it does happen and when it does it’s devastating.

A cut in a high-tensile fence is difficult to fix properly, and the whole thing can lead to the operator feeling very uncertain and worried.

That aside, it shouldn’t be the first customer of the day’s job to discover you have been a victim of something dreadful like this.

Make sure you really look at the fence, all the way around.

8. Rabbit / Badger Damage

Discovering that these vandals have been in overnight is the most common problem that needs dealing with at the crack of dawn.

You’ll need a temporary fix (rocks or something to fill the gap) but don’t forget about fixing the problem properly, or your field will end up looking like Steptoe’s yard.

9. Fallen Trees

This has happened to us twice – and terrifyingly, once with a customer in the field.

Regardless of good tree maintenance, these things happen.

We had a surprisingly calm call from a customer at around 2.30 one afternoon. “Hi Hannah, I’m so sorry but a tree has fallen on the fence and there’s a whole section broken – I’ve sent you some pictures”.

OMG. Where is her dog? Was she or the dog hurt? Thankfully no and this lady’s dog was no Ronnie Biggs so all was well.

Due largely to a career spent in event management, I’m prone to a bit of risk analysis and when I’d been drawing up our risk assessment and method statement, I put a basic procedure in place to deal with things like this so I just went onto autopilot. I called all the customers for the rest of the day, drafted a quick ‘incident report’ (belt and braces), and sent my partner to assess the damage and get to work. We had a ‘go-bag’ of fence mending tools and gubbins, so we had the thing handled before the end of the day.

The next time, it happened overnight and didn’t damage the fence, but thankfully on this occasion, I was the first in.

Check your insurance policies – if you have a comprehensive farm policy, you might have some cover for fence damage but straightforward Dog Field policies don’t usually cover fence damage – just worth thinking about.

10. Act of God

I don’t really know how else to describe them but here are a few things that have happened to us or others:

– Arrive to discover a flock of migrating birds in the field

– Discover a hare in the field

– An unexpected flood in the car park making access impossible without a 4×4

– A plague of locusts swarming in the field (a tall story but you get the point)

The Excuses People Make For Not Checking Their Fields First Thing

I hear a lot of chatter around this topic and I’m pretty confused as to why it’s debated so much but there are some of the common excuses field operators make for not checking their fields before opening. I’ve also added some ‘helpful’ suggestions for anyone who is struggling to get this job scheduled 😊 – please excuse the snark!

“I don’t live on site – it’s too far“

You need to prioritise your customers, so here are a few ideas:

– Get up earlier

– Employ someone who can get up and do the job for you

Easy!

“Can’t do it before the first customer – we open too early”

– Open later

– Get up earlier

“My Customer Checks”

Customers notice problems – but they’re not responsible for finding them. That’s your job, and it’s what they’re paying for.

I have had so many field owners exasperated by the people who do field checks in return for a free session – it just doesn’t usually work very well unless there’s a more deliberate and formal agreement in place.

Does your customer understand your legal and moral responsibilities? Do they know everything they need to be looking for and how to manage it? Ragwort, holes for people to trip in, what to do if someone has abandoned a car in front of the entrance, what to do if they find a puma in the field?

If you’re getting someone else to check your fields, give them a comprehensive checklist, add a motorway services toilet check sheet and get them up to upload pictures to a cloud account – this just covers you from an insurance perspective.

We solved this with the The Field Guard App – it has a ‘Team’ function so if you have a number of people checking the field, the records are all in the same place.

“My Insurance Policy Says I Only Have To Check The Fences Once A Week”

I don’t care what your insurance policy says and neither do any of your other customers.

“My Fences Are Dug In”

This only really protects the field from intruders digging in. It’s not the solution to avoiding daily checks.

“You’re so over the top Hannah!”

I hear you. I hear it a lot actually! And I make no apology!

I did my best with our first field, I think most people do. People loved it – we loved it. Then I got into the weeds and realised that running a dog field isn’t as straightforward as it looks – it’s something to be taken extremely seriously and done to the very best of your abilities.

You are opening your doors to people who are bringing their precious dogs to play. If you fail to take that responsibility seriously, you cut corners or neglect the details, then customers will notice and vote with their feet.

On behalf of all dog field users. Please check your fields each day before we arrive. It makes us feel safe; it makes us feel like you care about us as customers; and it shows in how good your field is.

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What to Check and When

Daily: perimeter, gates, corners, hazards, waste

Weekly: deeper check – strainers, posts, net tension, hinges, signage

Monthly: maintenance day – fix weak spots, top up surfacing, trim touchpoints

After storms: immediate check before reopening

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