How far would you travel to have your dog groomed?

Abrean

I would like to find out how far people in general are willing to travel to have their dog groomed?

I would like to set up my own grooming business, I want to run it from my home but my problem is I live in a small village that is about 20 minutes from both Wicklow and Arklow which are the nearest large towns and where I would hope to get most of my business from. I would be willing to open early, stay open late or work weekends, whatever it takes to get this business off the ground and attract customers.

So what does everyone think, would you travel that far?

Calibos

This post might get a better response in the Pet forum (maybe you already posted there?)

However my take on it would be thus. I'll start with a bit of background.

I have 2 male Westies and a female Shih-Tsu. One of the male westies has no problem being groomed and in fact I think the dirty bugger gets pleasure from the process as he goes into spasms of exstacy when his back is rubbed or combed The other male Westie and Female Shih-Tsu while not biters will not tolerate grooming for more than a minute or too before starting to struggle and just will not let up.

We've tried a different groomer every year for the last 5 years and each and every time 2 of them would come home either not cut or groomed at all because the groomer said she could not handle them, they just wouldn't stay still, or else they would come back shaved because the groomer said thats all she could do to get the tats out, they just couldn't keep them still enough for a proper de-tat and cut.

Now these were not amatuer stick them in the bath in their own house groomers. These were groomers with proper grooming rooms or outbuildings kitted out with all the gear.

We had almost given up on ever getting them professionally groomed and resorting to our own rough scissors hatchet job once or twice a year.

Decided to try one last time with professional grooming as a new place had opened up on the Vevay road here in Bray. The groomer had professional qualifications and had groomed many a prize winning show dog apparently. Didn't hold out much hope for 2 of our 3 hooligans though. Wasn't blaming any of the previous groomers and wouldn't have blamed this new groomer but hopes were not high.

Well after collecting the dogs later that day, all I can say is this girl was a miracle worker. All 3 came back 100% de-tated with 100% perfect cuts. How she got 2 of them to sit still for such quality cutting I do not know. I am not even worried that she put the fear of God into them or something. When we arrived to collect them they were happy as larry and were very affectionate to her. Not stressed at all unlike how they were when we collected them from all the other groomers. Like I said, a miracle worker. Not alone is she getting our business once a year from now one, (we used to only try and get them groomed once a year up to this point) she is in fact going to get our business every 3 months to keep our dogs looking fabulous.

.......and to answer your question.......

If this new groomer told us she was moving shop from Bray to North Wexford, we would be prepared to drive all that way to her.

So if you are good and your results speak for themselves, then I think a lot of people would be prepared to go out of their way to get to you.

Calibos

Yeah, no problem, don't mention it....:rolleyes: