Dogwood Grooming Spa offers high quality grooming for Knoxville pets
Though she grew up with a German shepherd, a St. Bernard, two Poodles and hamsters, Tara Johnson did not choose up the canine clippers till she was 34, grooming her black schnauzer, Velvet, on her kitchen desk.
“I simply at all times knew I had a coronary heart for all of the fur infants,” Johnson stated.
She has a coronary heart for his or her house owners, too.
When purchasers drop off their pets at Johnson’s Dogwood Grooming Spa, her purpose is to deal with them like household and their pets like her personal.
Lots of her purchasers have been together with her since she began the enterprise in her East Knoxville residence in 1999.
Dogwood Grooming Spa offers high quality grooming for Knoxville pets
On the subject of pet grooming, Tara Johnson and her daughters need purchasers to really feel like household and pets to go away trying higher than ever.
Brianna Paciorka, Knoxville Information Sentinel
“We wish them to really feel like household once they come over right here. We wish them to come back, and we wish to construct relationships with them,” Johnson stated. “We’re not simply right here as their canine groomer. I really wish to know them.”
She and her two daughters are licensed pet groomers. Collectively, the household is breaking via in an business the place Black pet groomers are far and few between.
Whereas it is not required, Johnson received licensed and skilled beneath Susan Porterfield on the Concord School of Grooming in Cedar Bluff, the one grooming faculty in Tennessee licensed by the Tennessee Larger Schooling Fee.
Johnson might have chosen to remain and work for Porterfield, however her instincts — and her household — had been telling her to begin her personal enterprise.
Over the previous 10 years, Johnson has seen her enterprise develop considerably. She began by herself in a makeshift setup in her storage. Now, she’s expanded right into a devoted salon in her basement the place she will see as much as 10 pets a day.
Johnson offers each canine and cat grooming for Knoxville’s furry mates. She provides all the pieces from a easy bathtub and trim to full-fledged styling and ending for each kind of canine and cat. She additionally provides de-matting, de-shedding and different care companies — together with a blueberry facial, when you actually wish to pamper your pet.
“I get a little bit emotional,” Johnson stated. “As a result of, you recognize, I’ve come a great distance. I completely love my purchasers, and I’ve a few of them returning to me since I have been in that storage.”
Johnson’s prices vary from as little as $25 and as excessive as $110, relying on the breed and repair.
Even when she labored alone, Johnson at all times handled Dogwood like a household enterprise.
“One factor I knew after I accomplished this, that will probably be primarily based round household,” Johnson stated. “Although I used to be working on my own at the moment, it was at all times ‘we.'”
Now, Johnson’s daughters Candise and Monica are bathing, grooming and pampering pets.
“They’ve taken quite a bit off of mother’s previous again,” Johnson stated, laughing.
However the additional assist would not maintain Johnson from placing within the work together with her consumer’s fur infants. Candise and Monica usually do the prep work, bathing every pet with shampoos and conditioners that scent like coconut, mango and extra. After a blow-dry, Johnson places the ending touches on the pets, taking additional care across the face.
“We put them off the desk, and we really feel good as a result of we all know we did all the pieces we might to make them really feel good,” Johnson stated.
Making her purchasers’ pets really feel snug helps set up belief with the house owners. For Johnson, that belief is important if you’re a Black pet groomer.
Although she’s initially from Indiana, Johnson considers East Knoxville her residence. However it wasn’t at all times that method.
“I used to wish to transfer out of this space as a result of I felt like this space damage me,” she stated.
As a Black lady, Johnson stated she’s struggled in ways in which different pet groomers have not.
“I do know quite a lot of instances the world could not wish to see it,” Johnson stated. “However there is a distinction relating to how you’re seen.”
At first of her profession, Johnson groomed in a predominately white neighborhood. Whereas working there, Johnson stated she might really feel folks taking a look at her.
“They’d simply take a look at me, and I might simply really feel it,” Johnson stated. “Not at all times in a nasty method. However, like, this was uncommon to see a Black particular person grooming.”
Johnson stated that have is what made her acknowledge she was Black. However that wrestle has by no means stopped her and her daughters.
“To be a Black enterprise proprietor is empowering,” Candise stated. “Saying, ‘I am a Black enterprise proprietor,’ there’s delight in that. There’s delight in that if you’ve come a great distance.”
The demographics of the business are altering, Johnson and Candise stated. They’re beginning to have a good time and see extra Black folks enter the sphere.
“I really feel like, as a Black race, we really feel like we do not do sure issues. However when (a Black woman) sees one other Black lady try this, that enables them to say, ‘Nicely, I can try this too. Nicely, I wish to be like her,'” Candise stated. “It is superior to see (my mother) truly be one of many first ones in Knoxville to be a Black lady … groomer.”
It took her a while, however Johnson has realized to embrace that delight in the identical method.
“I knew that I at all times needed to stand greater, transfer sooner and work more durable,” Johnson stated. “However it’s not that I needed to show something to anyone simply because I am Black. It is as a result of it comes from a spot in my coronary heart.”
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