I went back here for the first time in about 7 years. I 100% no longer recommend this business. It…read morehas went downhill dramatically. I should have known when I called to make an appointment and I could barely understand the woman that picked up with all of the dogs barking in the background.
When I arrived, the smell of urine was so incredibly pungent it burned my nostrils. I had a KN95 mask on to protect from COVID and it still stunk terribly.
There were multiple dogs trimmings all over the floor around her grooming table. It looked like she may live there, as there were stairs leading up and they had water jugs on all of them. There was residential furniture, etc. Her clothing was covered in so much hair. I understand that she's a groomer, but these were large chunks of hair. The place was cluttered and messy. I almost turned around and walked back out, but I figured that I had already gotten my arthritic old lab into the car and brought her in, let's just get this over with. Just a quick nail trim is all she needed, can't be too hard, right? Wrong.
It is one giant room and the 9 or 10 dogs in cages and behind a baby gate room divider all barked loudly. So loudly that when I could not hear the woman helping me, she pulled her mask to the side and began talking super loudly/almost yelling, about a foot and a half from my face. Great. Hope she doesn't have covid.
Then she told me that I would need to hold my dog for her. I've never had to hold my dog before at a groomer, but okay. She had me hold her on the filthy floor. I felt gross kneeling on it, as it badly needed a cleaning. She had clippers and a file. She decided to use the file, commenting that her nails were pretty short already. Not true, she was well overdue for a clipping. Her nails were all hitting the floor.
It was super fine and did hardly anything. I commented that K&A usually uses a dremel file on her. She says she has one too. She gets it and returns. I tell her she is overdue for a nail trimming, as her nails are all hitting the floor (hint, hint). I also tell her we're trying to quick train her, so please go short. She says she doesn't want to cut her. I said no, just go until you see the white circles. She's a chocolate lab and has dark claws, so you can trim safely until the center of the nail shows some white. She didn't do that. The second file is also super fine/dull. It's taking for-ev-er. My dog is getting hot and somewhat antsy. The temp was super warm in there. I was sweating a bit. She finished a paw and the nails were still too long. I let her know they were still touching the floor. She did go back and redo those. She told me that she normally works on the table and it is easier to see what she is doing up there. I told her that is fine, if she wanted to do that, we could move her. She then tells me that I would have to hold her, she wouldn't collar her to it and I would need to accept responsibility if she fell. WTH? I'm not a groomer. I've never done that before. Let's stick to the floor.
When she finally finished, they no longer touched the floor, but barely. It was only $11 and yet I feel ripped off. She had me use the back door to leave (to avoid walking through the frostbites drive through lane). She warned me the dogs would bark (as if they had ever stopped). The larger dogs barked, 2 more showed up and all 3 lunged into the plastic baby gate room divider that pushed forward/was unsecured as these dogs lunged toward my poor dog and she held them back. My dog was frightened. Never again.
Why 2 stars? She was nice. That's the only reason.
I left with a splitting headache and my nostrils have literally burned ever since. I didn't know urine could do that. It was awful. Never, ever again. Don't do it. BTW, K&A is great, as long as you ask for one of the owners. Their employees can be a bit hit and miss for nail trims. Still SO much better than this place.
