Muttmates Paddock

What the Paddock module adds

Muttmates Core is the spine of your back office: clients and dogs, the diary, prices, payment links, receipts, reminders, emails and settings. This manual covers only what the Paddock module adds on top, so if you have not read the Muttmates Core owner's manual, start with that.

Paddock is for a fenced field hired out by the slot, unsupervised — not a session you run, a space owners let themselves into. It adds:

• Paddocks: each with its own open days, hours, slot length and changeover, an extra-dog price, blocked times, and — if you use them — a gate code for today and for tomorrow.
• The paddock board: a week at a time, a cell a slot — free to tap and book, taken, or blocked — with the day's hires and the gate-code form underneath.
• The hire: an ordinary booking that works out its own length and price the moment you pick a paddock, and warns you of a clash rather than hiding it.
• Gate codes: optional. On, every confirmed hire gets the day's code by email and text — tomorrow's the evening before, today's the moment it's known.
• "Something wrong?": one tap on their own booking lets a client tell you about a mess, the gate or fence, or anything else, the moment it happens.

Paddock needs the Professional plan and up — an owner on the field unsupervised is a health-and-safety matter, and the client login keeps an emergency contact and your agreement current for exactly that reason.

Your Paddock page

Your services → Paddock in the rail opens the page. Four tiles: Today, the day's hires; This week, slots taken against how many are free; Gate codes — how many hires are still waiting on one, red once any are — or, with codes switched off, Free this week; and Owing, across today's and this week's hires. Beside the heading sit + New hire and Paddock board.

The tab row:

The main column leads with Today in the paddock — every hire today, its state, what's due, and a Send code / Resend code button where one applies — then Coming up this week, the fortnight ahead. The side column carries the Gate codes quick-entry form (every paddock, today's and tomorrow's code, one Save codes button), Clashing — any two hires overlapping the same paddock, should you have created one on purpose or by mistake — and a plain How it runs reminder of the send time.

A hire is one ordinary booking, on premises

There's no separate session type here — a hire is any booking whose service is ticked "This is a paddock hire." Its length is the paddock's own slot length, not something you set per booking; its price is the service's session rate plus the paddock's extra-dog charge for every dog after the first; and its mode is fixed to on premises, since a paddock is somewhere you own, not the client's home. Opening or starting a hire rearranges the booking screen into one box, The hire: client, dog, other dogs coming, when, which paddock, the price, and notes — with only paddock-hire services offered in the list, and the screen renaming itself New hire / Edit hire.

Setting up what you offer

A paddock-hire service is set up under Services & prices, ticked This is a paddock hire — one is seeded for you the first time the module runs: Paddock hire at $15 for a 45-minute slot. Its price is per session, not per minute; extra dogs are charged on the paddock, not the service — see below. Where should be On premises.

Add more than one hire service (a short slot and a long one, say) and each paddock offers all of them; the paddock's own Slot length, if set, overrides whatever the service says.

Setting up a paddock

Paddock → Paddocks → Add a paddock asks for:

Notes on the paddock (its description) go out on the hire confirmation and with the gate code — where it is, parking, what's there.

The paddock board

Paddock → Paddock board shows a week, tabbed by paddock when you run more than one: a column a day, a cell a slot. A free cell is a link straight to a new hire with that paddock and start already filled in; a taken one shows who, the dog(s), and tags for pending, money due, and the gate code's state; a blocked one shows why, from your Blocked lines. Below the grid: the day's hires with Resend code, Take payment and Open, and the same gate-code form as the Paddock page's side column.

Booking a hire, and what a clash means

A hire's price and length are worked out the moment you save: the service's session price plus the paddock's extra-dog rate for each other dog, and the paddock's own slot length. Type your own price in and it's kept — the module only fills the field in when it's blank, or still holds what it last calculated.

A clash is a warning, not a block. If the hire you're saving overlaps another live hire on the same paddock — counting the changeover either side — you'll see a notice and, on the hire itself, a link straight to the other booking and to the board. You can still save it on purpose; nothing stops you, it just won't happen silently.

Gate codes — how they go out

Paddock settings (under Set up) has Use gate codes, on by default: each paddock then carries a code for today and a code for tomorrow, set on the paddock itself or from either Gate codes panel. Send tomorrow's gate code at (6:00 pm by default) is when every confirmed hire booked for tomorrow gets tomorrow's code, by email and — where texting's on — by text too; set tomorrow's code before then, or it goes the moment you do set it. A hire made or confirmed for today, with today's code already known, gets it at once rather than waiting for the evening run.

Only a confirmed hire is ever sent a code — a pending one, still waiting on a deposit, never gets it, so an abandoned booking never hands out a working code. Change a code after it's already gone out and it's treated as new: the next check sends it again. Each hire's own Gate code panel shows exactly where it stands — sent (with the time and code), set but not yet sent, or no code on the paddock for that day yet — with Send the code now or Send the code again to push it by hand. Paddock rules, free text set once under Paddock settings, goes out with every confirmation and every gate code.

With codes switched off, nothing about this section applies: the ordinary booking reminder goes as usual, and however you actually let people into the paddock — an open gate, a padlock you describe to them — is entirely between you and them.

Blocking time on a paddock

The Blocked field takes one line per closure: weekdays and/or a time window, or a date, or a date range, then | and a reason.

• Mon,Wed 12:00-13:00 | mowing — those two afternoons only, every week
• 2026-12-25 | | Christmas — the whole day (the second | stands in for the missing time window)
• 2026-12-24 - 2027-01-03 | holidays — every day across that range

No weekdays and no date at all means "every day" for whatever time window you gave. A blocked slot shows its reason on the board and simply isn't offered online.

Taking a hire online, and "Something wrong?"

On the +Online plans, with online booking switched on and a paddock-hire service ticked Book online, each paddock appears as its own offer (one per service too, if you run more than one) — priced per session, with extra-dog charges named up front. The days on offer are whatever's actually free, past the paddock's Notice hours; the client picks a slot, says Who else is coming? from the dogs on their account, and books — an emergency contact and your agreement are required first, since nobody's supervising the field once they arrive.

Once a hire is confirmed, the client's own booking shows the paddock, the dog(s), and — once it's known — the gate code, or a line saying it comes the evening before. Around the time of the hire (from a day before to a day after), their booking also carries Something wrong? — one tap on Poo left in the paddock, The gate, code or fence, or Something else texts and emails you at once, adds a timestamped line to the hire's own notes, and lands on Today's Needs you until you mark it Dealt with.

The website's enquiry form asks a paddock enquiry How many dogs would come? alongside its other questions, so you have that before you ever reply.

Settings and set-up reference

When something goes wrong

A hire's price looks wrong. Check the service's session price and the paddock's extra-dog rate against how many dogs are on the hire. A price you've typed yourself is left exactly as typed — the module never overwrites it again.

The board or the Hire box warns of a clash. Two live hires overlap on the same paddock, counting the changeover either side. Check the board and move one — or leave it and save anyway if that's genuinely what you mean to do.

"No gate code for that day yet." Set today's or tomorrow's code on the paddock itself, or from either Gate codes panel, and try sending again.

The gate code didn't send. The client needs an email address or a mobile number on file — the notice says which is missing.

A hire never got its code, even though one's set. Check it's actually confirmed, not still pending — a pending hire (deposit not yet paid) is never sent a code on purpose, so nothing opens the gate for a booking that might not go ahead.

Online booking shows no free slots for a day I know is open. Check the paddock's Notice hours — the online page won't offer anything closer than that, even though the staff board still shows it as free for you to book by hand. Also check Blocked hasn't closed the whole day.