Groomer Fights for the Rights

April 21, 2020

While a community of pooches can no longer see through their overgrown fur, the owner of Bubbly Paws spends every day trying to convince the governor’s office to designate dog grooming an essential business.

“Regular grooming is not just about looking great; it is a vital part of keeping pets healthy,” Keith Miller says. He and his wife Patrycia run four Bubbly Paws locations around the Twin Cities, along with Pampered Pooch Playground dog day care and boarding. All operations are currently shuttered.

In the categorizing of essential/non-essential businesses, pet grooming has been a nationwide debate: is dog grooming a vanity service that should remain closed—like hair salons for humans—or is it esential to pet health? Adding to the frustration for small independent groomers like the Millers, some big box stores, which are open because they sell pet food and other essential supplies for animals, continued to groom after the small shops shut down. Petco, in particular, has come under fire for keeping its grooming services open in some states. In Minnesota, the big box stores have been ordered to stop grooming.

Miller talked to us about weathering the downtime as a small business owner, and the company’s plans for getting back to work.

Miller | We are not considered a critical business, so we’re closed. In the first two weeks, we rebooked 250 grooming appointments, and now we’ve rebooked them again. April and May are prime season—busier than all the holidays put together. At Pampered Pooch, we’ve lost all of the spring break boarding we would have had. We normally care for 115 dogs per day. The week before the shutdown, we had 40.

We voluntarily closed our self-service dog wash on March 17. The hardest part as a small business, is we want to do the right thing. Daycare, we can’t justify—that’s a luxury. But grooming feels like it can be justified. This is not about money or profits; it comes down to the health of the animals. It helps prevent common problems such as excessive shedding, skin and paw irritation, painful hair mats and excessively long toenails. Sometimes groomers are first to recognize a pet’s medical issue like fleas and ticks or an ear infection. Additionally, the American Veterinary Medical Association has advised pet parents to continue to ensure their pet is well-groomed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Two weeks prior to the order to close we started doing contactless grooming and it was very effective.

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