Battis Farm in Amesbury with your dog: the Lake Gardner shoreline trail

The City of Amesbury posts three Battis Farm rules, and two concern a dog walker directly. Dogs must be leashed at all times, and visitors should stay out of the Community Garden unless they have an approved plot. The third asks everyone to watch for seasonal parking signs from Amesbury Recreation. The leash rule lines up with the city's animal control by-law, which sets a chain or leash of six feet or less for a dog away from its owner's premises.

The garden rule is the one a dog tests. The Conservation Commission manages the Community Garden beside the parking lot at 76 South Hampton Road, plots are handed out first come, first served each year, and in summer the city describes it as busy with people planting, watering and harvesting. A sniffing dog drifts toward fresh soil, so shorten the leash as you pass the beds and stay on the path until you are clear of them.

Battis Farm is busy in ways a forest is not. The city lists hiking, biking, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing on its trails, plus bird watching, and warns that you may meet riders from nearby farms. A horse is the encounter to rehearse before it happens, because a dog that barks or lunges can frighten a horse and put its rider at risk. A bike coming fast around a bend is the other moment to have the leash short.

Just north of the farm is Camp Kent Environmental Center, city-owned, with summer day camps run by Amesbury Recreation and a caretaker living there year-round. The city says to reach it by walking north from the Battis Farm lot past the Community Garden. On a summer weekday that path can be full of children, so the dog to bring is one that walks past people calmly, and the one to leave home is still learning not to jump.

A dog that has walked half a mile of lakeshore and a boardwalk over wet ground comes home smelling of both. Our bath and brush in Gloucester is priced by size: $55 for up to 25 pounds, $65 for 26 to 50, $75 for 51 to 90, $85 over 90 and $95 for an extra-large long coat. A nail trim adds $16. Grooming needs no evaluation, so you can book it directly online or in the Dogtown app.

Amesbury is outside the Pup Van towns, so ask us about pick-up, or drive to 210 Eastern Ave. The practical pairing is a bath on a day your dog is already with us: daycare is $42 for a full day in a playgroup of 7 to 10 matched dogs, after the free evaluation on a weekday morning. And on the summer days Lake Gardner's beach is off limits, the splash pools on our turf yard are a swim your dog can have.