Recently a dog walker has started walking 8 dogs over our nature reserve is this allowed one person with some many dogs in a public area if there's a problem surely she cannot control all those.

It varies from council to council, I believe.

Depends on their insurance and also local council bylaws

As others have said it depends on the council. The real question is whether or not someone can control 8 dogs in public and that really does depend on the dogs. I have 4 dogs and sometimes walk my friends 2 too, so 6 in total with no problems at all. 4 are well behaved, well socialised hounds, one elderly collie and a young hyper lurcher - so only one dog who is hard work. I know someone who walks 4 large, young gundogs and they create mayhem wherever they go, jumping up on people, rushing up to and terrifying other dogs (even though they are friendly, they are just OTT).

The real problem I have walking 6 dogs is when more than one dogs goes to the loo at the same time, if 3 or more go at the same time trying to remember exact areas to go and pick up is challenging! I have a poo neutral policy though, if I can't find one in rough ground I will pick up 2 cold ones to balance it out

>  <br /><br />The real problem I have walking 6 dogs is when more than one dogs goes to the loo at the same time, if 3 or more go at the same time trying to remember exact areas to go and pick up is challenging! I have a poo neutral policy though, if I can't find one in rough ground I will pick up 2 cold ones to balance it out <img title="grin" class="fsm fsm_grin" alt="" src="/images/epx.png" />

I know someone else that does that she walks 4 dogs. Its a great idea

Are they all off lead  or on leads? Maximum  I've seen here have been three walked off lead,two retrievers and a Staffin.  The other walker has 4 but all whippet/greyhounds on leads.
I'd prefer  if paying a dog walker mine walked with one or two  othes only. To many and you haven't enough eyes/arms to go round

i have walked two off lead and lead my horse at same time but that was on.privit properity
i have tried walking my 3 together but my cross bread very strong so usley walk two pointers lord hacett off lead and hector on lead .the crossbred gets walked on his own
my big horse usley has hector lead in his mouth

They are all off lead 3 Dalmatians, ridgeback, one looks like American bulldog, pug. staffie not sure of the other one but it has a muzzle on. I don't think she picks up any poo. She says her insurance cover her. But if she is in a field I have to go into another one so she can come out. She has just started coming over and my concern if I am in a field with my 2 off as unfortunately one has very limited recall as I got him at a year and just run in and out of a kennel and not trained (didn't know this until after I got him)  have worked with him and if I am on my own he is no problem.  She is not easy to talk a bit of an attitude.

As sue jaw says . Our council.amd the adjoining ones only allow 4 per person even if they are your own dogs  and are un a public place i would.be unhappy with  anyone who walked mine with more than four .why not speak to your local dog warden for the rules and if there are problems report to them

It'll depend on the council, if there are any dog control orders in place, and on her insurance.  I'm not aware of any insurers that will insure a dog walker to take 8 dogs out at once but there may be one.

As for whether control is possible - as has been said, that depends on the dogs.  I used to regularly take my 8 dogs out of town to a disused field to exercise them together (we have a 4-dogs-per-person rule here for council land) and I had control over all of them, but I will not do that any more as my present mix of dogs means I would not have that level of control now.

I walk my 6, but on lead, if they are on lead I don't see an issue as long as they don't pull the walker over.

If off lead then I do think that is too many to have off at once.

If the dogs are your own you may have control and know that they dogs will be obedient and not cause an issue.

I'd not want to let another persons dogs off lead at all these days

There is an insurance who don't put a max number on, very cheap insurance but I decided I didn't like those ethics so went with the main one which puts a maximum number on the policy.

LOVE the poo neutral policy! I need to adopt this, I would still be searching at sun down! Haha!

Waiting for a reply from our council.

What area are you in as it know plenty of people dotted around the UK who might be able to give a quicker answer ;-) PM me if you like

When we were running numbers, anything over about 6 meant I had to do 'two strings', especially when we had varying ages, unless my sig.other was home in which case we took them all out at the same time but again depending on whether we had oldies who couldn't walk as far as the others.  But we lived in the sticks, so it was down the lane and out onto the open fields at which point they were off their leads (so picking up was easy!!).    I'd suggest 8 is plenty enough to handle, depending on the size and behaviour of the dogs.   And of course, any local bylaws.

We walk in Basildon or Laindon Essex.

I've asked the question so will respond if I get a response, lots of Essex walkers on there, good decent reputable ones so hopefully it can be answered

Thanks for your help. Where she is walking the area is under Basildon Council.

Westley heights?

That's next to where I go. We go over the Nature Reserve called Willow Park.