Pheasant shooting season: what it means on a dog walk
In England and Wales pheasants may be shot from 1 October to 1 February. A shoot cannot close a public footpath or bridleway: you may walk it on a shoot day, though you may be asked to wait while the guns unload. Open access land is different, because a landowner may close it for up to 28 days a year. Keep your dog close and away from the birds.
From the first of October until the first of February, some of the woods and field edges you walk through will have a shoot in them on some days. You can still walk there. A shoot cannot close a public footpath, and nothing about the season asks you to leave your dog at home. What changes is what a walk through a shoot is like, and on open access land, whether you can go at all that day.
The numbers
| Bird or rule | When | Law |
|---|---|---|
| Grouse may be shot | 12 August to 10 December | Game Act 1831 |
| Partridge may be shot | 1 September to 1 February | Game Act 1831 |
| Pheasant may be shot | 1 October to 1 February | Game Act 1831 |
| Dogs on a lead on open access land | 1 March to 31 July | CRoW Act 2000 |
When the season runs
The Game Act 1831 sets a close season for each game bird in England and Wales. For pheasants it is 1 February to 1 October, so the season runs from 1 October to 1 February. Partridge starts earlier, on 1 September, and grouse on 12 August, ending on 10 December. Read 30 September 2026. Game Act 1831, section 3. That section no longer applies in Scotland, where it was repealed in 2011.
A footpath stays open on a shoot day
A public footpath or bridleway through a shoot is still yours to walk. BASC, which represents shooters, puts it this way: the walker "has the right to pass and re-pass along the right of way without hindrance." Its guidance to shoots is to stop shooting as walkers come near, until they are far enough away not to be worried by it, and to post somebody at each end of a path who may ask you to wait while the guns unload. That is a request to pause, not a closure. Read 30 September 2026, from the guidance published June 2023. BASC, shooting, rights of way and access.
Open access land can close for a day
Open access land is the moor, heath and down you may wander across away from a path. There a landowner may close the land, or restrict it, on up to 28 days a year by giving notice to the access authority first. Not on Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday; on no more than four Saturdays or Sundays in the year; never on a Saturday from 1 June to 11 August, or a Sunday from 1 June to 30 September. So a closure usually falls midweek. Read 30 September 2026. Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, section 22. A closure like this is of the right to wander. A public footpath across the same land stays open.
Your dog and the birds
In England and Wales pheasants are not livestock under the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953, whose list is cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, camelids and domestic poultry. In Scotland the list includes pheasants, partridges and grouse "being kept enclosed prior to their release for sporting purposes", so a dog worrying birds in a release pen there is worrying livestock. Read 30 September 2026, from the version in force since 18 March 2026. Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953, section 3.
Whatever the law says about the bird, the Countryside Code asks you to "keep your dog under effective control to make sure it stays away from wildlife, livestock, horses and other people unless invited", and to check local signs. Read 30 September 2026, from the version last updated 26 May 2023. The Countryside Code. A pheasant that bursts out of the grass at your feet is exactly the moment a dog forgets its recall.
In Scotland
The Scottish Outdoor Access Code asks walkers to be alert to shooting in woods and on the land beside them through the autumn and winter, to take advice on other routes, and to "avoid crossing land when shooting is taking place". Near a pen of game birds: "keep your dog under close control or on a short lead". Read 30 September 2026, from the page updated 11 August 2023. Scottish Outdoor Access Code, low ground shooting.
What the app can and cannot tell you
We do not know which days a shoot is out, so nothing the app says means there is no shoot on your walk today. A one-day closure of access land does not take a walk out of the app either. What we do not offer is a walk that leaves the path across access land a landowner has closed to dogs for a year or more, as some grouse moors are. If your dog is frightened of bangs, a park or a walk through streets is less likely to have a shoot beside it than woods and field edges between October and February.
Questions this answers
- When is pheasant shooting season?
- In England and Wales pheasants may be shot from 1 October to 1 February. The Game Act 1831 sets the close season as 1 February to 1 October. Partridge starts on 1 September and grouse on 12 August.
- Can a shoot close a public footpath?
- No. You have the right to walk a public footpath or bridleway on a shoot day. BASC, which represents shooters, tells shoots to stop shooting as walkers come near, and a shoot may ask you to wait while the guns unload.
- Can a landowner close open access land for a shoot?
- Yes, for up to 28 days a year, by telling the access authority first. Not on Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday, and on no more than four Saturdays or Sundays a year. Rights of way across the land stay open.
- Is it an offence if my dog chases pheasants?
- In England and Wales pheasants are not livestock under the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953, whose list covers farm animals and domestic poultry. In Scotland, pheasants and partridges kept in pens before release are livestock under the same Act. Either way, keep your dog close near a pen.
Read next
- The rules of the groundDo dogs have to be on a lead? The law in England, Wales and ScotlandNo law puts every dog on a lead in public in Britain. Here is where one does: roads, council orders, open access land, fields with sheep, and Scotland's rules.
- The rules of the groundDogs on leads in Yorkshire: what every council's dog order saysWhat each Yorkshire council's dog control order actually says, read from the sealed orders rather than the web pages, with the dates they run out.
- What makes a walk hardWalking a reactive dog: the first step out of the doorWhat owners of reactive dogs say they need from a walk, in their own words, what the app asks and checks before it suggests one, and what it cannot know.