Groomer takes style to streets

If James Bond were a dog groomer, he’d have a van like this.

Julie Beeman’s mobile pet grooming salon is decked out from head to tail: Remote-operated doors guide you into a spotless white and yellow interior, where pets can be washed with hot water in a stainless steel tub and groomed on a full-size table.

It’s a full-service salon – on wheels.

“It’s pretty nice,” Beeman said, pointing out the various functions of the van’s interior. “This way the dogs don’t sit in a kennel waiting six or eight hours. With me they’re done in an hour and a half.”

Four months ago, Beeman moved to Spokane and opened her mobile pet grooming service Tails R Wagon, and business has been increasing since. Inside her van, she can perform any service that one could ask for from a groomer, including a full bath, a hair combing and a hand dry.

While the propane furnace kicks in and warms up the interior, Beeman’s dog, Gurgy, and her cat, Speck, patiently look around the van. Beeman said the van is a comfortable place for most animals.

“I won’t make it scary for the dogs,” she said. “If they’re going to get groomed often then they better not be afraid of it.”

Even cats have their day in the mobile salon. Beeman said she was surprised how many cats reacted to the van.

“Most cats have not had problems with the water,” she said. “But for some reason they don’t like the dryer.”

Prices are about $15 more than the same prices in most licensed salons, Beeman said. Prices vary by the size of the animal: grooming for a Shih Tzu runs about $45, while a large Newfoundland would cost about $90. Prices for baths are totaled by the pound.

In the cab, a GPS system guides Beeman to various appointments throughout the area. A computer in the back keeps track of clients and a satellite-connected credit card machine processes payments on the spot. There’s even a human-sized restroom in the back, and a fridge and microwave up front.

Beeman said mobile grooming is convenient for both owners, animals and even herself.

Owners don’t have to take their animals into the shop for the day. Animals like staying close to home, and Beeman doesn’t have to deal with a crazy office with lease payments and “dogs barking and phones ringing,” she said.

For her, the job is a dream come true. At age 19, she told her parents her ambitions.

“When you tell your parents you want to go into dog grooming,” she said, “well, they tell you to go out and get a real job.”

So she worked in corporate accounting for a company in California for 20 years, and every so often, on a whim, she would order the brochure for the pet grooming school.

Finally, after she turned 40, her company gave her a bonus and she spent it on grooming lessons.

“I wish I did it 20 or 30 years ago,” she said.

Since she finished schooling, she has taken out a Small Business Administration loan and has been booking appointments from as far east as Coeur d’Alene, as far north as Mead and as far south as Rockford.

“I haven’t got to the point that I’m full yet, but I’m doing better than my projections,” she said.

For someone who has loved animals her entire life, Beeman said the best part of her job was meeting all the new dogs and cats.

“I’m one of those people that if somebody is walking their dog down the street, I just have to stop and say ‘Hi’ to them,” she said.