This Pet Grooming Business is Off the Leash

Employees at in Fenton are up to their knee caps in friendly furry canines. The dog grooming salon and day care has a free roam policy, which allows good natured dogs to wander off leash throughout the business. Dogs that don’t play nice with others are separated from their cohorts by safety gates, or spend the day in the doggie playroom. The shop serves 20 doggie clients on a typical day, plus there’s a half dozen or more employee dogs who roam the halls.

Owner Suzanne Christensen encourages her employees to bring their dogs to work with them, as she often does so herself. Christensen, who lives in Dittmer, owns nine dogs and will bring several of them to work with her.

Christensen is also a foster mom for a pair of dogs waiting for adoption. She said that she came by some of her dogs through her rescue work and that she took in a few pets that were deemed “unadoptable” by shelters.

“I have a Chihuahua that lives under my recliner who’s very skittish,” she said. The Chihuahua was rescued from a puppy mill where the dog had lived in a cage for four years and was never properly socialized.

Christensen is also trained as a veterinary assistant and got into the grooming business when one of her employers put her in charge of the vet clinic’s kennel. She decided to attend grooming school so she could back up the kennel’s groomer in emergencies. She liked grooming dogs so much that she went back for her Master Groomer Certification.

Seven years ago Christensen and three others opened Rub-A-Dub-Doggie. She said that one partner left the group immediately and a second woman dropped out when her family moved to another state. Christensen bought out the remaining partner two years ago after that women decided she only wanted to work two days a week.

Christensen has eight employees: three groomers besides herself and five dog bathers. Her son Jon works as one of the bathers and her husband Mark occasionally pitches in after finishing his shift as a supervisor at a chemical company.

Most the day care clients at Rub-A-Dub-Doggie come in for grooming in the morning and hang out until it’s more convenient for their owners to retrieve them. Christensen says she’ll see a few day care dogs when clients need to get their pets out of the way of home improvement projects, or when clients have new puppies they don’t want to leave home alone. Boarding costs $15 for a full day or $7.50 for a half day. There’s a discount for multiple days, and they do not take in dogs overnight.

Rub-A-Dub-Doggie also does fast service grooming, and can even do simple jobs while the owner waits. A bath and grooming usually takes two hours for the typical dog. Prices are based on the size of the dog and go up for larger animals or more complex grooming needs. They also charge extra for difficult to handle dogs or heavily matted fur. Heavily matted fur not only requires extra care to avoid injuring the dog, but can dull expensive clipper blades. The base price of grooming is $14, which will cover your average toy size dog, like a Chihuahua. A Miniature Poodle runs about $35. Christensen said the most she’s ever charged was $85 for a huge mixed breed dog with terrible matted hair and a bad attitude.

Christensen said she sees a lot of Shih Tzus, Poodles and Golden Retrievers as clients. She said that breeds with heavy coats benefit from regular grooming to cut down on shedding or matting.