Dodside Dogruns

This is the story of who we are and how we got here, it’s an odd and varied tale without intrigue, infighting or many surprises for that matter but I think it’s interesting.

I was in my [very] late 40s, in denial about not being 23 any more. Living a dream life of increasingly grown up children, a holiday home I live in all year round surrounded by all the toys I dreamed of as a kid growing up in Glasgow’s south side.

At the time I lived with my partner, Libby the spaniel and Monty the cat and occasional children. My hobbies mainly involve things with engines including a 1912 car, a 1914 motorcycle, a 60 year old tractor, plus all manner of tools each of which is less safe than the last.

I moved out to Dodside in 2009 and embarked on a personal crusade to enjoy a country lifestyle of wood burning stoves, wind turbines, chickens and mouse murdering felines.

Dodside Dogruns came from an adverts I placed online looking to rent my field for keeping horses but with no takers. I then got a phone call from someone wanting to walk their pack of rescued hounds in the field. We met and surveyed the area while they explaned what they’d need to let their barely controlled bunch of hooligans off the lead safely. After 15 minutes the idea had crystalised and 3 weeks after that Libby’s Run opened for business.

I expected about 30 or 40 people to be interested but within 2 days of asking in the right places and 18 hours of starting my own discussion group on Facebook I had over 350 people signed up and a year later I had 2 Dogruns,  30,000 website page views per months, over 2,000 members of the group and 3,000 visitors to the FB page.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I am very flattered to have been copied 4 or 5 times (as at October 2017) but with at least 2 copies closing within weeks of opening and others turning into boggy, poo ridden messes (I’m reliably informed) it seems original is best. Part of my, unexpected, marketing success is that the term ‘Dog Run’ to describe a larg secure dog park or dog walking field is now regarded as the generic term! Of course, this means some imitators think they can copy everything I’ve done now to the business name and the text from my website …. they soon changed when I pointed out that what they were doing was illegal.

Meanwhile, the business grows with new Dogruns being sought around Scotland and new ideas and twists on a theme being tried, and with 4 years of being in operation (as of 2020) we are as busy as ever. Libby unfortunately died in June 2020, my kids have left home, and Monty the cat has gone with my ex partner to work on reducing the rodent count at the coast but since then I’ve been joined by Jellybean my geriatric rescue cat.

In November 2020, I opened the Big Field as a more natural walking experience. Around 7.5 acres with parking inside the field, there’s 6′ high fences, rabbit mesh at the bottom and long grass, short grass, reeds, bogs, water courses, hills, trees, and amazing views over Glasgow, the Clyde Valley, and over to Whitelee Wind Farm.