PARKING
Please only park in the dedicated parking area. This is to ensure the safety of everyone attending the field.
On weekdays, up until 3pm, you are free to use the Bark-Island dog field parking spaces as well as Pat Stewart Tuition parking spaces. On a weekend or after 3pm, please only use the Bark-Island Dog Field space. If you intend to bring more than two cars, please email us so we can make arrangements.
Please be aware that during the hours of 3pm-8pm and on weekends, please be aware that the car park area can be busy and care should be taken entering and leaving the driveway.
ENTRANCE AND EXIT ETIQUETTE
Here at Bark-Island, we want to provide a safe, friendly atmosphere for all of our guests. We understand that some of our doggy visitors have emotional requirements (they may be noise, fear, stranger or dog reactive) and they deserve the same safety and freedom as our confident doggy visitors. For this reason, we ask you not to show up early and not to leave late. If you do this, you could be upsetting the dogs before or after you.
Please always ensure that the gates are securely locked behind you for everyone’s safety and leave enough space for others to enter and leave.
HYGIENE & HEALTH
We follow strict hygiene protocols to ensure that our field is always clean, which helps to prevent the spread of disease and illness. This is why we encourage you to bring poop bags and dispose of your dog poop in the bin provided. We really don’t want to be annoying about this, but it’s so important for the health and safety of other field visitors.
We ask that all dogs are fully vaccinated or have had titre testing to ensure there is no spread of disease. If you think your dog is sick, please do not attend the field and we’d be grateful if you could let us know if there has been an incidence of sickness at the field. We ask this to protect all of our customers and our doggy friends.
WATER
We intend to have a full supply of water available for your dogs to drink from at all times on site. Sometimes we may miss this and sometimes the water may be running low; please just let us know and we will get it filled straight away.
FORCE FREE ETHICS
We respect that everyone has their own training and dog owning standards and procedures, however, here at Bark-Island, we are committed to advocating for non-aversive practices. We’re not the right field for you if you intend to use prong or shock collars. We also don’t want to see aversive punishment on our site.
We know this is your personal choice and so please feel free to go elsewhere, yet it is our personal choice to remain force free and we do not wish to see any animal in pain, or being threatened by pain here at Bark-Island. We will politely ask people who use aversive techniques to leave as we don’t wish other people to associate our site with such practices. We just want what is scientifically proven to be the best for animals.
OUR NEIGHBOURS
We have neighbours on all sides of the fields and we don’t want to disturb them; we want to provide a caring service to all of our community and this means being respectful at all hours. We expect dogs to vocalise (barking is in their nature and even in our name!) but we would encourage you and your dog to try and limit over-stimulated barking, particularly before 9am and after 6pm. Some of our neighbours may have young children, their own animals or may even work nights.
Please be aware that while our field is secure, a neighbour in an adjacent house does have dogs that may be seen during your visit. The dogs cannot access each other.
A neighbouring business is Pat Stewart Tuition and so children and families may be in use of the car park area at the same time as you and your dogs. Please ensure that your dogs are kept on lead at all times until you access the secure field.
There will be certain times during the year that livestock are in adjacent fields as this is a farming village; however, there is no access into the secure field, but your dogs may see the odd sheep or cow on their visit.
RADIO AND MUSIC / BLUETOOTH PHONE CALLS
Because we want to be kind to our neighbours and our other visitors, we ask you to keep your car stereo volume so that it can only be heard within your car. Some of our doggy guests are noise reactive and we know you will want to do your best for them too.
COMMUNICATION
We believe that open communication and collaboration are key to achieving success in any project, and we are always willing to listen to our visitors’ needs and ideas. Our goal is to build long-term relationships with our guests based on trust, integrity, and mutual respect. If you have any issues at all, please contact us at woof@bark-island.com as the first port of call and we will always do our very best to help.
In an emergency only, please call this number: 07523 646361 and one of our team members will be on site to help within minutes.
REVIEWS
We know it’s a bit of a pain, but we’d be super grateful if you could leave us a review here.
As a local business for Barkisland, it’s important that our neighbours know that we’re trying to provide something for the community. We also want to let as many people we can know about us so that they and their doggy family can get some safe play too. We’d love it if you left an honest review and we will always respond to any concerns or feedback.
If you’d prefer not to do this publicly, you can always contact us at woof@bark-island.com and we will respond as soon as possible.