A PET owner is calling for warning signs to be placed on a cliff where his dog miraculously survived a 70ft fall.

Paul Hoskins was walking his usual route over Redcliff Point near Weymouth with his five-month-old cross-breed dog Diva when she disappeared over the top.

Self-employed carpenter Paul, 36, said: “Diva wasn’t too far away from me and I was calling her away from the edge.

“The next time I looked she was halfway down the bank.

“I was calling her and she was trying to scramble up, she just kept sliding and sliding further down towards the sheer drop and she just disappeared.

“It was the worst feeling ever to see her go over the edge. I thought she was dead.”

Preston resident Paul rushed down the cliff to find Diva on a ledge 30ft above the beach.

He said: “She was in shock and was sat there with her ears dropped and her paws in the air.

“I climbed up to get to where she was and stuck her inside my jacket and zipped it up so I could get her down.”

Staffordshire bull terrier and Jack Russell cross Diva was taken to a vet in Dorchester, where she was found to have a broken bone in her paw and damaged tendons.

A vet fitted the dog’s leg with a splint that she will wear for eight to 10 weeks.

Paul said: “To fall from the height that Diva fell from and to survive, she was very lucky and it was because she is young.

“She’s now sleeping for much of the day because of her medication and I have to settle her in at night.

“She’s been trying to run around with her leg in a splint.”

Paul said that Diva is normally very good off the lead, but he plans to stay further away from the cliff edge the next time he walks her at Redcliff Point.

“Next time I will go across the fields further away from the cliff, I’m definitely not going to go anywhere near the cliff edge.

“With the summer coming, more people are going to be walking their dogs there and if they have got an older dog they’re probably not going to be so lucky.

“I’ve never seen a sign up there that says ‘Danger, Cliff Edge’. There have been a lot of landslides there and tufts of grass that give way,” he said.

Peter Broatch, who owns Eweleaze Farm and the fields where Diva fell from, said: “We don’t put warning signs up, the cliff is a natural feature and people need to exercise due caution.

“The main part of our land is fenced from the cliff. It could have been that the dog walker was further back at the time, towards Bowleaze.

“I think people should consider whether it’s appropriate to keep young dogs on a lead when crossing farm land. We do keep livestock in our fields.”