Board and train for Andover, MA dog owners

A weekly class at our building would cost an Andover family close to two hours in the car each time, by our estimate, before any training happened. A board and train flips that arithmetic: you drive to Eastern Ave to start, again to collect, and for the coaching, and in between your dog trains every day. Foundation, one week, suits puppies and young dogs who need basic obedience, leash skills, place, stay and recall, impulse control, and crate and household manners. Advanced, two weeks, suits adolescents who know the basics at home but lose them in public.

The method is the other reason. Gabriella Pope, our Director of Training & Canine Behaviorist, brings a B.S. in Biochemistry and more than ten years of hands-on work with behaviorally complex dogs, and every program here is fear- and force-free. Your dog sleeps in an overnight suite with 24/7 monitoring, joins a matched playgroup by day when that suits it, and gets enrichment between sessions. If a weekly class near home fits your family better, that is a sound choice, and we will tell you so.

The Trustees' Charles W. Ward Reservation, entered at 65 Prospect Road, has 704 acres and almost 15 miles of trail, some of it part of the Bay Circuit Trail. Dogs walk on leash; the property opens at 7 AM and closes at sunset, members park free and nonmembers pay a parking fee. A short walk from the lot, a boardwalk crosses the quaking bog at Pine Hole Pond, and the accessible trail there runs about a quarter mile out and back: a narrow wooden surface that tests a heel position well. Holt Hill, at 420 feet the highest point in Essex County, is the longer climb.

The Trustees authorize bow hunting at Ward from the first Monday in October through December, Monday to Saturday, from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset, with no hunting on Sundays. The Andover Dog Park at 302 High Plain Road is the other named spot: under section 11 of the town's dog bylaw, a dog inside the town-designated dog park, under the direct and immediate supervision of a responsible adult, counts as properly restrained. Save it until the recall is steady on a leash elsewhere, since a dog park is a hard room to rehearse a new cue in.

Foundation ends with a go-home lesson at pick-up; Advanced includes two scheduled coaching lessons. Because each visit means close to an hour's drive each way, set both Advanced dates when you book and bring whoever will hold the leash at Ward. The daily updates during the stay are your preparation, so by pick-up you know which cues your dog has and how they were rewarded.

Home visits in Andover are not on our published menu; ask the front desk. Private sessions at Eastern Ave start from $94 if a skill needs polishing, Canine Campus offers two, four or six weeks of training days with your dog home each night, and a Dogtown Academy full day costs $89 with a training session built in. Canine Campus includes pick-up and drop-off, so ask whether Andover can be covered before you plan around it. Our board and train page compares Foundation and Advanced in one place.