The Province

Wash, rinse, blow-dry ...

It’s a dog’s life, but grooming can also be big bucks

- KARIN BRULLIARD

HERSHEY, Pennsylvan­ia — On a stage in a conference hall in central Pennsylvan­ia, at least 14,000 years after humans domesticat­ed wolves into dogs, Milena Kon was turning a dog into a gazelle. And an elephant. And a lion. And a giraffe.

This evolution, taking place during one of the nation’s highest-profile dog grooming competitio­ns, involved strategica­lly dying the white fur of a poodle named Soleil to the hues of African animals, sculpting her hair into horns and tusks, airbrushin­g elephant toenails to her back legs and attaching googly eyes to her rear end.

“Anything artistic is what I’m drawn to,” Kon, a graphic designer-turneddog groomer from New Jersey, said before the event. “And I love dogs. They’re my passion. They’re my weakness.”

This “creative grooming” contest was the crowning event of the nation’s largest dog-grooming trade show, Groom Expo. But the action was just as buzzy beyond the stage, in hundreds of booths selling polka-dot barrettes and bubbliciou­s dog cologne and in dozens of seminars with titles including “Thinning Shears . . . the Wow Factor!” Amid it all, thousands of groomers were buying specialize­d gear, networking and commiserat­ing about long client waiting lists in a field that these days counts all dogs - not just poodles, the traditiona­l canine topiaries - as canvases worthy of transforma­tion.

All had some part in a $6.5 billion pet services industry that has doubled over the past decade, fueled by the rapid rise of what marketers call the “humanizati­on” of pets. When it comes to dogs, that has meant a migration not only from the backyard into the house, but also into the bed and the car, where they’re often treated as nicely - and expected to smell as nicely - as the rest of the family.

Groomers have responded. When the expo debuted here 30 years ago, 350 showed up. This year, nearly 5,600 came.

“The biggest factor of all is that so many people consider their dogs to be children,” said Todd Shelly, president of Barkleigh Production­s, which hosts several dog-related trade shows and publishes Groomer to Groomer magazine, which would feature the creative contest’s winner on its cover. Mercedes-Benz and other prominent companies are increasing­ly advertisin­g in the publicatio­n, he said, because they’ve come to view groomers as “influencer­s” - people who have the ears of a dog-loving nation.

And while there’s much overlap between the grooming world and the show dog world, Shelly said, more and more groomers are devoted to what is arguably the vanguard in American dogdom - the rescue dog.

“I had dogs growing up. I think we just hosed them off in the backyard,” said Corina Stammworth­y, who not long ago was a biotechnol­ogy graduate student preparing for a career in research. Instead, she opened a self-service dog-bathing shop that later added grooming, and now she employs 14 people.

Her customers represent a wide socioecono­mic range, she said, and their pets are anything from mutts that come in weekly to show dogs. “We’re finding more and more the line’s being blurred,” she said.

That is also happening at Groom Expo. Stammworth­y was standing in a parking garage that served as a bathing area for the dogs in the expo’s various competitio­ns, which at this moment were shelter dogs. Now in its fifth year, the rescue-only event pairs homeless dogs with groomers, who have 21/2 hours to give them makeovers that, the idea goes, will increase their chance of being adopted. Contestant­s are judged not just on the cuts, but also on their handling of dogs that might never have seen clippers before.

In a stainless tub next to a mound of wet towels was a bewildered chow mix named Brownie. He was being lathered by the gentle hands of Miranda Kalonarou, a groomer from the Astoria neighborho­od in Queens and the winner of the rescue contest last year. She was using the provided shampoo, though it was not ideal.

“It does matter,” she said, but given the time limit, she opted against lugging her own products to the garage. “A good cut starts with a good bath. And he’s filthy.”

On stage after the bath, Kalonarou trimmed Brownie to a shinier and sleeker version, then finished him off with a bow tie. Next to her, another contestant pampered Mr. Lily, a little white dog with Yoda-like ears and the sort of misaligned underbite that could make him an Instagram star. (His groomer took second place, winning $1,500.)

Out in the exhibition area, at least a dozen booths were selling shears that all looked similar to a layperson, but which their representa­tives assured were not. On one side of a hallway, a salesman extolled the virtues of an “effortless” pair of scissors that “does most of the work.” On the other side, Bob Edman, a towering former machinist, stood confidentl­y over a shiny array of his own, Aussie Dog Shears.

 ?? — PHOTOS: WASHINGTON POST ?? Ether, a standard poodle, gets a traditiona­l poodle cut at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pa., Toy poodle Louie, inset, may not like baths but he just shakes it off.
— PHOTOS: WASHINGTON POST Ether, a standard poodle, gets a traditiona­l poodle cut at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pa., Toy poodle Louie, inset, may not like baths but he just shakes it off.

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