A WALKIES went horribly wrong for one Wokingham woman, and now she’s warning other residents to keep their dogs off the grass.
Riley is a two-year-old spaniel and the pride and joy of Nicola Johnson.
She usually walks him around Langborough Recreation Ground, off Gipsy Lane, a safe space where the pooch can be let off steam, run freely and enjoy games of fetch.
One Friday evening last month Ms Johnson took him for a walk around Finchampstead, heading to a play area off Mornington Avenue. She was on the pavement and Riley brushed past the verges where No Mow May had seen the grass growth explode.
The dry spell meant it had seeded and started to turn into hay.
“He was walking and he suddenly bent down and was tipping his head to one side like he was in pain,” Ms Johnson said. “It was all of a sudden.
“He wasn’t himself at all, he was hardly walking. I don’t know if (the grass) affected his balance or what.”
They called their vet, who told them to go to an emergency clinic.
“The vet asked why he was tipping his head, and gave Riley a painkiller by injection which seemed to help,” Ms Johnson said. “We were in the vets for around three hours and we paid just over £800 for that.
“We brought him home after he was sedated, and he really didn’t seem very well. We just kept an eye on him and thought it was the sedation or the painkiller because he’d never been ill.
“Before treatment, apart from his health check and injections every year, there was nothing wrong with him at all.”
By the middle of the week, Riley was still not right.
“On the Friday night, he started trying to be sick, he wasn’t going to the toilet, and he wasn’t drinking water despite the hot weather.”
The next day, it was back to the vets – this time the emergency clinic in Woodley town centre.
“The vet checked him out and couldn’t find anything wrong with him. She gave us hydration drinks and all sorts of antibiotics. He is back to normal now,” Ms Johnson said.
As well as the second bill, they have another souvenir – the blade of grass extracted from his eardrum, now stored in a test tube.
“It must have cost us £1,000 in all, but I wasn’t prepared to leave Riley in pain, plus you have the risk of a perforated eardrum. There was nothing else down there, only that large piece of grass,” Ms Johnson said.
Now, she wants Wokingham Borough Council to ensure this doesn’t happen again, not just to her, but to other dog owners, and is calling on them to keep cutting the grass so verges don’t get too tall, and end up being home for ticks, fleas and rogue blades of grass.
“I think the council need to take responsibility for it,” she continued. “People do need to walk their dogs. It’s getting limited as to where we can walk him because the grass verges are long everywhere.”
Ms Johnson says she carefully chooses the places to exercise Riley to avoid long grasses.
“We take him to Langborough Rec, that’s lovely and well kept so no problems there,” she says. “We can let him off the lead and he has a good hour run, no problems at all.”
Cllr Ian Shenton, executive member for environment, sport and leisure at Wokingham Borough Council, said: “We’re naturally very sorry to hear about this distressing incident and hope the dog is better now.
“We appreciate that this grass verge may have been longer than residents were used to, which follows an extended period of extraordinarily heavy rain. There are many valid reasons why landowners may choose to let grass grow longer, including biodiversity initiatives like No-Mow May.
“The risks to dogs around grass are well documented and animal welfare organisations advise routinely checking for grass seeds, as well as parasites like ticks, after going outside.”
Cllr Shenton said the council would be looking at changing its management of open spaces.
“Looking ahead, we’ll soon be consulting on proposals to reduce the frequency of our grass cutting. We’ll be publicising this once it launches and encourage as many people as possible to respond using our Engage Wokingham Borough consultation platform,” he continued.
“We know these proposals haven’t been welcomed by everyone but we’re facing enormous and unprecedented financial pressures – and there are no signs of these changing any time soon.
“We’ve got to make savings across many areas to protect core services like adults’ and children’s social care. Together, these account for more than half of our annual council tax spend and provide vital support to members of the community who rely on us the most.”
