Donovan Reservation and Sagamore Hill with your dog: hilltop meadows in Hamilton

The Donovan property page lists dog walking among nine activities, from geocaching and letterboxing to horseback riding and mountain biking. The rules come from Greenbelt's policies, which cover every property unless its own page says otherwise: carry a leash, leash an aggressive dog, keep noise down, never leave a dog unattended, prevent digging and carry out the waste. Use runs sunrise to sunset. The land straddles Hamilton, whose by-law asks for a leash off your own premises, and Essex, which has no town leash law, so Greenbelt's guidelines are the steady rule across the town line.

Two features call for a short leash whatever a sign says. Some fields are active hayfields left uncut until late summer so bobolinks and eastern meadowlarks can finish nesting, which makes a loose dog in tall grass a dog in a nest site. And Greenbelt asks visitors to respect Sagamore Hill, the burial site of Masconomet, his wife and others of his band, as sacred ground. Greenbelt's trail guidelines say to stay on marked trails, and a leashed dog keeps you inside that rule.

Greenbelt gives 473 Sagamore Street, Hamilton, as the address, and its map shows two parking areas: one at the northern end beside a kiosk and the boardwalk, and one to the south at the Donovan Playing Fields, off Sagamore Street. The property page lists no fee and no hours beyond Greenbelt's sunrise-to-sunset rule. Clip the leash on before the car door opens, because both lots sit off a public road and the southern one is beside the playing fields.

Map discipline matters because the reservation is a patchwork. Greenbelt's map marks private parcels on several sides and a USAF solar radio observatory near Sagamore Hill, and Greenbelt also holds six donated conservation restrictions on private land in Hamilton, Essex and Ipswich that together form a 525-acre protected corridor. Protected land is not always land open to walkers, so follow the trail map and the boundary signs, and save the map to your phone before you leave home.

We do not take dogs to Donovan or Sagamore Hill. The reservation straddles Hamilton and Essex, and that matters for one Dogtown service: the Pup Van collects and returns dogs booked for daycare, Dogtown Academy or an overnight stay for $10 each way at homes in Essex, Gloucester, Rockport and Manchester-by-the-Sea. Hamilton addresses are outside the van towns, so ask us about pick-up. A full daycare day is $42 in a matched group of 7 to 10, after a free weekday evaluation.

After a muddy loop, a bath and brush at our Gloucester studio is $55 to $95 by size and books online without an evaluation. Nail clipping is $16, and a whitening shampoo at $8 helps a light coat stained by trail mud. Book the next groom at pick-up and that appointment is $5 less. Grooming appointments cancelled without notice carry a $10 fee, so move the booking in the app if the walk runs long.