Вак-Форест: как аллергия у собаки породила сеть спа-салонов для животных

In 2011, Vanessa Davis was running an interior design business in Charlotte and bathing her golden retriever, Taylor, at least three times a week. Taylor, then 3, had developed allergies severe enough that a veterinarian recommended long-term steroids. Davis went looking for another option. The medicated shampoo she settled on had to soak all the way to the skin for 30 minutes to be effective, long enough that she took to lathering him up in the shower and turning him loose in the yard to run out the clock. One afternoon, Taylor didn't head for the back door. Instead, he shook and jumped on her bed. "I had to wash everything," Davis said. "It was a mess." It was also, she said, the moment the idea took hold. She was burned out on design work and had spent months researching natural approaches to canine skin problems, collecting certifications she assumed she would never use professionally. A close friend was a groomer, and Davis had started spending her off hours at the salon, learning the trade in exchange for helping hang draperies on design jobs. Standing in a soaked bedroom, she figured she wasn't the only pet owner with that problem. Davis opened Dirty Dogs Spa in the Heritage area of Wake Forest on March 1, 2012, after a friend in the area talked up the town and she persuaded a landlord to take a chance on the concept. The plan was self-serve washing and nothing else. The grooming requests started almost immediately. Knowing she couldn't run the business and groom at the same time, Davis hired a part-time groomer that May and her first full-time groomer in November. By 2015 she had five. Growth followed the town. Davis doubled the size of the Wake Forest shop in 2020, opened a second location on Creedmoor Road in North Raleigh in 2021 and a third at Wendell Falls in 2023. She began franchising last year. The pace of Wake Forest's expansion, she said, is part of why it worked. Rogers Road was a single lane from Forestville Road to Main Street when she opened, and woods still stood across from Heritage High School. "It allowed us to grow and expand, but it allowed me to not be forced to expand very quick," she said. "It gave me an opportunity to perfect the way that I do things." Wendell Falls, she said, reminded her of Heritage in 2012: new, growing fast and short on established businesses. Davis is a certified groomer, certified in pet skincare and canine massage, and she and her staff are certified in Fear Free handling as well as pet CPR and first aid. She previously taught aspiring groomers as an adjunct instructor at Wake Technical Community College and now runs a hands-on grooming school out of the Wake Forest location. Students arrive expecting to play with dogs. What the work actually requires, Davis said, is patience. "You're getting everything from puppies who are very scared to senior dogs that may have a hard time standing up," she said. Some grooms have to be split across two visits. That's the part customers rarely see. A matted coat is often better cut out than brushed out, Davis said, because brushing hurts, and a dog that remembers a painful appointment is harder to groom the next time. "We consider ourselves a teaching salon," she said. "We're doing it for the health and well-being of the pet, even though the pet parent is the one who pays." Davis knew one person when she moved to the area. She met her landlord and his wife, which made three. "My clients have become my extended family," she said. "You get to know them through their dogs. Without them, I would not be where I am today."