How it works

Door to field and home again

The same order every week, so your dog learns the routine and you learn roughly when the bus reaches your street. Every time below is a planned time: your ticket carries your own window, and we narrow it the evening before.

18:00, the evening before Your ticket, narrowed Bookings for the day close, the manifest is printed, and you get a message with a twenty-minute window rather than the published thirty, plus who is driving. If the bus runs more than fifteen minutes behind on the day, you get a text.
07:45 Checks, before anyone is collected Vehicle, interior temperature, water, first-aid kit, leads, towels and the manifest. It is logged either way, and a failed check cancels the day rather than starting it hopefully.
08:35 – 10:20 Collected from your door Or from an agreed K9 Bus stop. The bus waits two minutes at a door, with one call and one text, and then has to move on — eleven other dogs and a field booking depend on it. That is why every first address is agreed in advance as a door, a key safe, a key we hold, or a meeting point.
10:30 The gate Leads stay on between the bus and the gate, every time, because there is usually livestock in the next field. Then the gate is shut behind us and they come off.
10:35 – 12:20 Two hours in the field Fifteen minutes to arrive, drink and settle. Fifty-five minutes of play: recall games, sniff trails, a bit of structured fun rather than a forced fetch marathon. Fifteen minutes of rest, water and photographs, with the older and flat-faced dogs in the shade. Another block of play. Then leads on, a paw and coat check and a towel.
12:45 – 14:30 Home, in the order collected Not in the order that is quickest for us. It costs a few extra miles and it means no dog is away two hours longer than its neighbour for the same fare.
By teatime The day report The album from the day and a short, specific note about your own dog. Always by noon the next day at the very latest. It is the one part of this that never slips.

Small green fields divided by drystone walls running up a Dales hillside, with stone field barns — Walled fields and a gate you can shut. That is the whole specification. Kreuzschnabel, CC BY-SA 3.0

What lands in your inbox

The day report, by teatime. An album link and one honest line about your dog: “Rufus took twenty minutes to settle, then played beautifully with the spaniels.” Specific, not gushing. If it was a quiet day for your dog, it says that too.

Why the times above are not promises

They are seed times, and they will be replaced with real numbers from three dry runs before they are printed on anybody's ticket. A published window you cannot keep is a support cost forever, so the site says “planned” until the bus has actually driven it.

The timetable for The Ribble Run

Your stop

A door, or a K9 Bus stop

Door to door is the standard offer and it is what most people are buying. But dwell time at doors, not distance, is what makes or breaks a timetable — and a meeting point is better for you as well as for us.

Your door

A thirty-minute published window, narrowed to about twenty the evening before. We park somewhere legal, walk to the door, check the harness, and have half a minute of conversation with you if you are in. Two minutes is the wait if you are not.

Agreed in advance as somebody home, a key safe, or a key we hold under a signed key-holding authority. Keys are tagged with a code, never with an address, and never stay on the bus overnight.

A K9 Bus stop

A named spot with a published time — a village car park, a green, a pub car park by arrangement, always with the landowner's written permission and a safe place to stand off the road.

You get a two-minute window instead of a thirty-minute one. Four doors become one stop, which saves the run about eighteen minutes. And you meet the other owners, which turns out to be most of the point.

This is the marker. It goes on the map, on your ticket when your stop is a meeting point, and on a small A-board at the stop itself on bus days.

The field

Private, fully fenced, and ours for the session

No other dogs, no roads and no gate anybody else is opening. That is the product, and it is the thing most owners are actually anxious about, so here is exactly how it is run.

One compatible group per enclosed field. Groups are split only where there are genuinely separate fences and separate gates — two handlers at opposite ends of one open paddock is not two groups, and pretending otherwise manages nothing.
No group food games and no shared food. Treats are given individually, to a stationary dog, away from the others, and only when the profile allows it.
Several water points, not one. A single trough is a resource to guard.
Written rules for the energy and size mix, and for what happens if a dog is over-aroused, guarding, or in a scuffle.
Near misses are logged as well as bites, because that is what lets Ian see a problem forming rather than react to one that has already happened.

We are not naming the field until the agreement is signed, and no route goes live until it is. “A private, fully fenced field” is a promise we can keep; a name we have not signed for is not.

A closed metal field gate in a stone wall, with sheep pasture rising beyond it — A gate, shut behind you. It is the whole point of a secure field. Chris Heaton CC BY-SA 2.0

Before the first adventure

Every dog is met first, and that is the whole reason it works

A form and a phone call cannot tell you whether a dog will board a large vehicle, tolerate being handled by a stranger, or settle with eleven others. Twenty minutes in person can.

Step one The profile Breed, age, size, habits, health, vet, emergency contact, and the three photo consents. Ten minutes, and you can save it and come back.
Step two A fifteen-minute call With Ian. Your dog, its habits, the pick-up arrangement, what a bus day looks like, and what happens if something goes wrong.
Step three A free meet-and-greet Twenty to thirty minutes in person: a handling check, a look at the harness, the vaccination certificate seen, and a stationary boarding test on the bus with the engine off. No charge, and no charge if the answer is no.
Then The first adventure, £23.40 The new dog boards last and sits next to a handler, and goes into the field on a lead with that handler while the others settle. Never more than one new dog per handler on a run.

Approved, approved with conditions, or declined

The decision is written down, and “with conditions” is a real and common answer: sits with a handler, no group treats, a meeting point rather than a door, or the first few adventures on quieter days. If the answer is no, we say why, specifically, and point you at a service that suits your dog better.

What if it is hot, or filthy?

Rain does not stop a bus day. Dogs like it more than we do, we carry towels and seat covers, and between November and March we add fifteen minutes to the drops for the mud.

Heat does change it, in graded steps rather than all at once. Around 20°C we shorten the field time, water every fifteen to twenty minutes and use the shade. Around 24°C it is a morning run only, and any dog flagged as heat-risk is offered a free move instead. At 27°C, or with a heat-health alert or an amber weather warning on the route, the day is cancelled and refunded.

Those numbers are prompts, not verdicts. Air temperature alone is not the decision: humidity, direct sun, the ground, the shade in the field and the individual dog all matter. A handler makes the call and records what they decided and what they observed, which is the evidence if anyone ever asks.

The rest of the safety plans

One adventure, one dog

£26

Collection from your door and home again
Around two hours in a private, fully fenced field
Up to 12 dogs, two trained people, never more than six each
Water, a treat if you allow it, a paw check and a towel-dry
The album and a note about your dog, by teatime

First adventure £23.40Ten per cent off each dog's first day out.

Register your dog

The numbers

£26 a dog, and here is where it goes

12 dogs at most

2 trained people, every run

2 hrs in the field

4–5 hrs door to door

90 min on the bus at most

£23.40 the first adventure

What £26 includes, and the cancellation policy

Ready when your dog is.

Every dog on the bus has been met first, and that is the whole reason it works. It takes twenty minutes, it costs nothing, and then you can book any Tuesday or Thursday you like.

Start with a meet-and-greet

£26 per dog per adventure · first adventure £23.40 · free to register, and nothing to pay until you book.