By John Ryan
Melissa Kerney loves her job and says the three and a half years she’s been operating the mobile Dirty Dawg Spa has been a happy time.
She grew up in dubbo, attended Dubbo Public and Dubbo high before embarking on a career in the health sector.
“I was working in health and our district was restructured so I was looking to do something different and I love dogs, always have so I thought it was a good time to do this,” she told Dubbo Photo News, remarking that one great advantage of the career change was the lessening of the paperwork burden.
“A lot less paperwork involved, heaps less,” she laughed.
And she loves the fact that at the end of each day, or the end of each grooming job, she can look at what she’s accomplished in very real and simple terms.
“You can see what you’ve done straightaway, you can see the difference in the dogs whereas working in health it takes forever for anything to be done and often you don’t ever see any end result, but in this job it’s so good to see the dogs happy and smiling.”
Melissa believes her clients (the dogs, not the humans) have a healthy respect for the way they’re groomed, or not, and says a tidy-up can put pooches in a very positive mood.
“I think it’s just that they know that attention is focussed on them, they tend to feel heaps better, I think they just enjoy being cleaned and pampered.”
As with many businesses, the Covid restrictions hit Melissa’s operation hard but towards the end of the lockdowns she says rules allowed dogs to receive “welfare” grooms for issues such as matted hair which could lead to health problems.
“We weren’t allowed to actually groom for routine cases but if a dog needed a welfare groom then we were allowed to do it on advice from a vet,” she said.
“It was mainly matted hair that created health risks for dogs, they’re uncomfortable and it can really be quite detrimental to their health or some dogs have double coats and they need to be groomed because of the heat.”
Melissa says the best thing about the job is spending quality time with all the dogs.
“I just love hanging out with them and spending time with them, getting to know their little personalities whilst they’re being groomed, that’s definitely my favourite thing.”
There is a stress factor of running her own business but Melissa says that’s outweighed by the fact she’s her own boss and can run her own race, as opposed to working in a bureaucracy where limitless boxes need to be constantly ticked.
“There’s always the stress of knowing the animal is in your care and you have to be aware of its safety but being your own boss far outweighs the stress of working for any sort of corporate or anything like that.”