Check out our article in the Dayton Daily News!!

Click to view: http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/community/beavercreek/pamper-pets-at-local-shop-620374.html

BEAVERCREEK — Even her roughest customers leave feeling beautiful.

For Amy Howard, owner of GroomingDales Pet Salon and Day Spa, it’s a dog-eat-dog world when it comes to pet grooming. In business for 14 years, she’s had a lifelong love of animals.

“I was that little girl who brought home every stray, every injured rabbit, every dog, every cat,” Howard said. She delivered newspapers as a youth, and she used her delivery bag to carry injured critters to her home or a veterinarian’s office.

Howard’s staff not only pampers dogs and cats. Employees have trimmed rabbits and guinea pigs and they do not get their feathers ruffled when asked to groom birds, Howard said.

“I’ve had birds all my life. A large bird can take your finger off at the knuckle,” she said.

The shop doors are locked when someone works on a bird, with one of her 12 employees stationed at the door should a customer arrive. The only pet grooming requests she refuses are those she considers inhumane.

The shop opened in March 1996 with grooming and day spa services. In 2004, she added a few boarding cages and the following year she added a self-serve pet bathing station.

In 2006, initially as a joke, she began offering services for pet waste removal and was surprised how popular the Poopie Police became. The next year, Howard said, she bought the neighboring store front and expanded her retail area for pet clothing and supplies.

Howard, who grew up in the Miami Valley, has accompanied pets when they’re put down and comforted grieving families. Knowing how important pets are to customers, she has cameras throughout the shop so she can check on the animals from home.

The salon is at 3821 Dayton-Xenia Road. For more information, call (937) 427-3777, or visit www.?