Pet services in Camp Verde

Read the heading loosely. Both listings here are horses, not dogs and cats.

Nashwa Farms Equestrian Center is a horse boarding business on Mahoney Road, with an arena on site. River Ranch Horse Resort is on West Cloverleaf Ranch Road and covers horse boarding as well.

That is not an accident of filing so much as a fact about Camp Verde. This is horse country in a way the rest of the valley is not: large parcels, irrigated pasture off the river, and a long ranching history that predates the tourism. If you are moving here with horses, this is the town that is set up for it.

What to ask a boarding yard

Full board or partial, and exactly what that includes: feeding twice a day, turnout, stall cleaning, holding for the farrier and the vet.

Turnout, how much and in what. A horse in a stall twenty-three hours a day is a different arrangement from one on pasture.

Water and shade in summer. This is the Verde Valley and July is serious. Ask what the water arrangement is if the power fails, because a great many properties here are on a well and a pump.

Arena access, whether it is included or extra, and whether it is shared.

Who is there at night, and what happens in a colic emergency at 2 a.m. That is the question that matters most and the one people forget to ask.

Dogs and cats

For grooming, boarding and day care for ordinary pets, Cottonwood has the nearest options, twenty-five minutes away, and Sedona has more. The valley’s veterinary practices are on the vets page; Camp Verde has three, and none of them publishes out-of-hours cover.