07/07/2026
Nearly 4 years ago and the argument is still ongoing. See the vid.
We rarely engage on socials these days, finding our industry emails a far more 'sociable' method of communication with dog field owners but sometimes the gloves have to come off. If you're a dog field operator and you're not on our mailing list DM us and we'll add you.... in the meantime - please read!
I'm cheesed off. I am. Sick of it, if I'm honest.
Sick of dogs not being looked after, sick of customers not being looked after, and sick of dog field operators not backing one another when it would cost them nothing to do so. It's daft, the world's bonkers enough as it is, and we could all just... stop.
So here are three things we really shouldn't still be arguing about in 2026. Take them or leave them.
1. It's too hot to open.
There. Said it. I'm not going to apologise for it.
There's an amber heat-health alert across much of England from tomorrow through the weekend, and we're somehow still debating whether it's alright to run a dog field in it. It isn't.
If your field's open in this weather without genuinely exceptional mitigating circumstances, consider yourself on the naughty step. It's irresponsible, it reflects badly on every operator doing the right thing, and I can't picture the version of events where the motive is anything other than the cash.
And before anyone emails me: no, a water feature doesn't fix it. Shade doesn't fix it. The fix is closing, or pulling your hours back to the cool ends of the day. That's it.
If that's you, please reconsider. Not for my sake. Because to every other operator and to your own customers, running full hours in a heat-health alert doesn't look like dedication. It looks like someone who couldn't be bothered to shut the gate for the sake of the dogs or, someone who still thinks it's the customer's responsibility to decide whether your field is safe or not.
2. XL Bullies.
The second thing we're apparently still arguing about. Following the 1 July legislation change, there's detailed information in the members' area on exactly what it means for anyone running a dog field. Short version: it changes precisely nothing about our advice.
Out of curiosity, I went digging this week. Asked a few of the AI tools, Googled a few of these things. There's a mountain of information out there, and a worrying amount of it is inaccurate or years out of date. The very first source that came up, confidently telling people the wrong thing, was a DOG FIELD'S BLOG. Mind blown. That's the downside of the internet in a nutshell: endlessly available, frequently wrong. Which is rather the point of having a members' area you can actually trust.
I'll not go over it all again here. Pulling this together and checking it's factually correct takes real time and legwork, and that's rather the point: if it were all just sitting there, easy to find and easy to trust, you wouldn't still be going round in circles about it on the operator pages. It's all in the members' area, done properly, whenever you want it.
3. Operating without up-to-date health and safety documentation.
No shade at all here, honestly. The vast majority of you probably don't have this in place, and a fair few of you might not even know you need it. That's fine. Nobody's in trouble. It's just one of those things that's easy to miss.
If you do have it, when did you last actually update it? Things have changed, and this stuff needs keeping current, not writing once and forgetting about.
I know it's annoying. Part of what draws people to dog fields is that the barriers to entry are low and it isn't heavily regulated, and that's especially true for those of you coming across from livestock farming, where the rulebook is thick. But 'not heavily regulated' doesn't mean 'don't bother'. It just means the responsibility sits with you to do it properly and to keep a record of what you do.
And it really isn't as hard as it looks. It just needs doing.
While you're closed this week, here's the actual to-do list:
- Close the field. That's number one, and it covers most of today.
- Use the downtime for the maintenance you've been putting off.
- Drag your terms and conditions, privacy policy and paperwork into 2026, while nobody's badgering you about rescheduling or why they can't book in at 1pm in 35 degrees.
-
And here's what does not need to be on the list!:
- Buying a children's paddling pool, filling it with water, and hoping it does something useful. It won't. That water will be up to Quooker temperature by 11am, and you'll have achieved nothing except put a Temu hot tub in your field.
- Posting the 'too hot to trot' dog temperature chart on your socials, or writing a stirring call-out about operators who've stayed open or owners who don't look after their dogs. We shouldn't need those charts in this day and age anyway, but either way you're shouting into the void. The people who need to hear it aren't the ones following you and nodding along. As ever with social media, it's the wrong audience entirely.
And now the nice bit.
Because here's what I know for a fact: dog fields are doing brilliantly. The ones taking it seriously, without making a great song and dance of it, are thriving. It's genuinely not hard to be one of them.
If you want to be one of the excellent operators, the ones doing right by the dogs, right by their customers, keeping abreast of where the industry's heading and trying to be the best they can be, come and join us. That's what the membership is for.
There's no shame in any of this. You might be doing some things incorrectly. You might have made unforeseen missteps that feel hard to undo. That's fine, that's what we're here for. We'll help you work through them. It's all about backing people who want to run better dog fields, for the good of the whole industry.
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