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Date: 8/4/2021
HAMPDEN – Courtney’s Pawfessional Grooming at 522 Main St. offers grooming for all breeds of dogs and cats, including bathing, brushing, nail trimming, ear cleaning and haircuts. They have 20 animals per day with six groomers on hand working seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“I’ve always strived on quality of the grooming over quantity and making sure we’re super thorough,” said owner Courtney McLaughlin. “We want to make this salon a happy atmosphere and place where not only the customers want to be, but where the dogs want to be too.”
McLaughlin has always had a great love and passion for animals. At 14, she worked with her grandmother at a kennel and pet care business in East Longmeadow for two years. She then found Diana’s Pawfessional Grooming and fell in love with the place and atmosphere.
“I met Diana Rios-Sheldon, the owner of Diana’s Pawfessonal Grooming, through a work-based learning program during my senior year in high school,” McLaughlin said. “We became great friends.”
McLaughlin told Reminder Publishing that Sheldon wanted the salon to be a place where people can feel comfortable. Grooming salons is basically a customer leaving their child, or “fur baby,” with them in a sense. She always wanted people to know that everybody there was very loving, compassionate and honest. Her vision was to try to give customers exactly what they wanted. McLaughlin said, “Diana is such a loving and caring person. She took me under her wing, taught me how to groom and I’ve been there ever since for 11 years. She ended up selling the shop to me this past February.”
During the pandemic, McLaughlin said the salon was busier than ever. However, when they first came back, it was extremely hard for them to accommodate everyone. They had 300 to 400 customers McLaughlin had had to reschedule because the salon wasn’t considered an essential business during the closure.
While people were home, they began adopting pets which gave the salon a huge surge of new customers.
“Before [COVID-19] business was very steady. The grooming salon has always been a very successful business,” McLaughlin pointed out. “As soon as [COVID-19] hit, we’ve just seen an increase of people that want to stay on a schedule now rather than calling. It’s become more busier after all of [COVID-19].”
At the moment, McLaughlin doesn’t have changes planned for the salon, but it’s something she would like to look into. In the future, McLaughlin said she would love to bring in new staff, host events, expand the business by possibly selling some products and add a cat room to the salon.
She concluded, “When I have somebody come in and leave as a happy customer and happy little puppy, that’s the most rewarding thing knowing that I can help the animals.”
Call 566-0044 to make an appointment or message the salon at https://www.facebook.com/courtneys.p.grooming for availability.