Great Brook Farm State Park with your dog: off-leash trails, leashed by the farm

DCR's guide to dogs in its parks names a short list of off-leash properties, and Great Brook Farm in Carlisle is on it, with a condition: on trails not in the farm or pond area. Dogs must be leashed in all parking areas, at Great Brook as everywhere in the DCR system. Away from the off-leash trails, the standard DCR rule applies, a leash no longer than ten feet. Every dog should wear a collar with current license and rabies tags, and one person may bring no more than four dogs.

DCR does not draw the farm or pond area on a map, so read the signs; the park's own trail map tells dog handlers to abide by posted trail signs. In practice, treat the farm complex, the fields around it and Meadow Pond, the pond in the middle of the park with the boathouse and canoe launch, as leash territory. The same map asks every visitor to stay on designated trails and roads and within 15 feet of the edge of every agricultural field.

DCR describes a 1,000-acre park with more than 20 miles of trails, Native American sites, 17th-century cellar holes and an active dairy farm that offers free tours on weekends; the farm was home to the first robotic milking system in Massachusetts, and the farm complex includes an ice cream stand. The park's summer trail map lists nine named trails, each with its own length and most with their own marker, and numbers the intersections from 1 to 44 so you can follow a route junction by junction.

The table gives the map's lengths and markers. The longest is the Acorn Trail at three miles, west of Lowell Road, followed by the Pine Point Loop and Heartbreak Ridge at two miles each. The Pine Point Loop runs past Meadow Pond, so part of it crosses the pond area that DCR keeps on leash. The map is dated 2015, and trails change, so check the boards at the trailheads; DCR also posts a separate winter map, covered in the next section.

DCR charges a daily parking fee of $3 for Massachusetts and out-of-state plates alike from April 1 through November 30, and $20 for buses; the page also links to DCR's state parks parking pass. The park is open from sunrise to sunset, and its address is 165 North Road, Carlisle, with restrooms and a visitors center among the facilities. Carlisle is far outside the Pup Van towns, and for most Cape Ann owners Great Brook is a planned day out rather than a weekday walk.

A dog that has spent the morning loose in the woods and fields comes home ready for a bath. Our bath and brush at 210 Eastern Ave in Gloucester is $55 to $95 by size, with nail clipping at $16 and de-matting at $15 per 20 minutes for burr-knotted feathering, and grooming needs no evaluation. For a recall that can meet DCR's standard, our Bright Beginnings program works on recall among its everyday manners for pups from four months, and training sessions start from $94.