Anything for the pets, isn’t it? In the UK, dog owners are paying by the hour for private, secure fields where their dogs can run freely and safely. Rebecca Lee, who lives in rural Cambridgeshire, rents a safe, green field for her dog Moscow twice a week.
One of his fields used to be let for sheep grazing at £300 a year. So when this opportunity arrived at his doorstep, he spent £15,000 turning the field into a secure dog field. In the summer peak, it can now earn up to £400 a week.
As restrictions lifted a little, the fields became safe havens to meet up with friends and family and exercise safely,” Katherine Shields Smith, co-founder of Dog Walking Fields, said. “The owners of these dogs all appreciate somewhere safe to relax off-leash without being approached by other possibly well-meaning but exuberant dogs,” Shields Smith added. Ben Webster, a farmer in Coton, near Cambridge, has watched that demand arrive at his gate. In other words, one good week beats a full year of sheep! “During the pandemic, enclosed fields became a refuge for people who wanted to exercise their dogs away from other people, socially distanced. Open spaces were crowded, especially with travel restrictions in place. The clientele stretches well beyond difficult dogs. Owners book for pets that are anxious, injured, disabled, small, elderly, in season or in training.
And you get people in the summer who want to just come, have a glass of wine in the field and let their dogs run around while they sit with friends on the bench and chat for an hour, knowing their dogs will be safe and secure,” Webster told the publication. For dogs like Moscow, this facility is a huge relief. The pup was born during the first lockdown and given up to a rescue centre by his previous owners when they stopped working from home. “He hadn’t had a lead or a collar on him until he was six months old. I don’t think he’d ever been walked on the pavement. And I think that led to a lot of his issues,” Lee recalls. She approached a dog behaviourist and has since started using a dog field near her home, which gives Moscow a safe space to play. “We are making lots of progress. He can now go on group walks with a dog walker and is great with other dogs he knows.”
