For those of you who don’t know, the husband and I own a small dog grooming business in the little town near our house. March 25th marked 10 years of being in business! When we first opened, we had 3 fur babies- Gus the silky terrier (and namesake of our shop), and Roxy & JoJo the boxers. A few months after we opened, one of the girls from our local vet office called to tell me there was a great dane at a nearby shelter. She knew I wanted one soooooooo badly, so I left work early that day to “go look at him”. Of course, the husband wasn’t surprised to find me pulling in the drive with a large Harlequin passenger!
Needless to say, a lot of things have changed since then… Not long after we added our 4th dog, we found out we were expecting our #1 skin kid. We sold our house, and lived in a studio apartment behind our shop to cut expenses as we built our clientelle. A few years later, things started getting a little cramped in our tiny apartment, so we bought a forclosure and worked for several months to make it livable. After spending all of that time and hard work fixing up our new house, I went to see one of our client’s bouvier des flanders puppies, and of course, decided i couldn’t live without one of them! A few weeks later, Velma was added to our zoo!
As if 5 dogs and a 2 year old weren’t enough, the next few years brought #2, #3, and #4 skin kids, along with the loss of Carl, the great dane. (I still cry when I see a great dane.)
Some of the positive aspects of having our own business are that the husband and I get to work together, we get to bring our dogs to work, and we get to bring the kids to work. Some of the crazy and stressful aspects of having our own business are that… you guessed it…. the husband and I work together (can get ugly sometimes!), we get to bring our dogs to work (although they mostly stay home these days), and we get to bring our kids to work (which can be really embarrassing when they start screaming and fighting when I’m checking in a dog or on the phone with a customer!).
One of the other “benefits” of my work is that I can groom my own dogs. Having 4 dogs at this point in our lives, it really saves us a lot of money. The problem is, most of the time we’re so swamped with our clients, that our poor dogs have to wait until I can squeeze them in! That’s what happened to poor Gus last week… it’s been at least a few months since the last time he was groomed. He is a single coated dog, so he normally doesn’t shed. With the warm, dry weather we’ve been having, he was almost blowing coat like a double coated breed would! He also had dry skin, and was brown instead of grey from all of the dust in the air (from the lack of rain in our area)! Talk about feeling like a horrible mom!
If it was up to him, he would never get groomed again! He absolutely hates it, but has learned to tolerate it as a necessary evil of life…
He felt much better when he was done! Gussy will be 14 in October. He’s starting to show the normal signs of aging, but he still takes his job of bossing everyone around very seriously!
Did I also mention that I also give the boys haircuts at work?! (Talk about redneck!) It is hilarious to see people’s faces when they drive by and do a double take at the little boy sitting on the grooming table getting his hair cut! My next victim will be Velma the bouvier…. hopefully sooner than later!
I love that you call them “fur babies” and “skin kids” just like i do! Still no skin children for me, though: i’m sticking with the furry ones!