Mill Pond and Pipestave Hill with your dog: West Newbury's voice-control trails

The town's dog recreation page sets the terms for Mill Pond Recreation Area: no more than two dogs per adult may go off leash on the walking trails and open space, under immediate voice recall, and leashes are enforced in every area marked on the maps posted on the grounds. The flyer the town posts for dog walkers repeats the limit, ties it to the town dog bylaw, and adds that all dog waste must be bagged and dropped in a disposal bucket or trash barrel.

Pipestave Hill reads differently. The same page lists Pipestave Hill and the other town trails as places where dogs must be leashed and under effective control, while the flyer, headed Mill Pond / Pipestave Recreation Area, treats the whole area as one and marks only its blue zones as leash-only. The trails run into each other, so the boundary is hard to see on the ground. While the two documents differ, the careful reading is a leash on Pipestave Hill's trails and voice recall only where you are plainly on Mill Pond ground.

The town calls Mill Pond and Pipestave Hill its largest trail network, about 270 acres of multi-use trails of varying length, type and difficulty, most of them marked and maintained. Maps are posted at kiosks in the Mill Pond and Pipestave Hill parking lots. The 2013 trail map shows both entrances off Main Street, which is Route 113, with the Pipestave entrance near the DPW yard and the riding rings. It marks parking by the Mill Pond cabin and dock, at the Lower Field, near the Pipestave baseball field and on Chase Street at Dunn Field. Marked trails are drawn in color and unmarked ones in tan.

The high point is Archelaus Hill, at 248 feet, near the southern edge of the map by Archelaus Hill Road. Dunn Field adds more than 70 acres of farmland and forest, with trails to the Pipestave athletic fields and to Chase Street, and the network crosses Route 113 to Riverbend and the Page School, where the town's page requires a leash. The town lists no fee or opening hours for the area, and its pages mention no drinking water, so carry enough for your dog.

Immediate voice recall means your dog turns and comes the first time you call, with a horse on the trail, a dog across the field or a deer in the brush. West Newbury's bylaw counts a dog that is neither leashed nor otherwise under its owner's immediate control as at large, with fines of $25, then $50, then $100. If the recall is not there yet, keep a long line on at Mill Pond, call often, and pay every return with something your dog loves.

While the recall is a work in progress, a daycare day gives your dog off-leash play inside fences: a playgroup of 7 to 10 dogs matched by size and temperament, on the indoor floors and turf yard at 210 Eastern Ave in Gloucester, for $42 a full day or $33 a half. West Newbury is outside the Pup Van towns, so ask us about pick-up, or allow about 50 minutes each way outside rush hour, by our estimate. Before that first playgroup day, your dog needs our free evaluation, held on weekday mornings from 6:30 to 9:30.