Woman opens dog parlour after dance school injury

A WOMAN from Shiplake has opened a dog grooming parlour from her family home.

Demi Cookson, 22, operates Dog Grooming by Demi, where she lives with her parents in Reading Road.

After sustaining an injury while studying performing arts, she ditched her musical theatre dream for bathing and styling dogs instead.

Miss Cookson said: “Initially, I did a degree in musical theatre and dance and I was convinced that that was what I wanted to do my whole life. But I ended up breaking my foot on stage at my grad show and I sort of left with nothing.

“I ended up working at a branch of Pets at Home where I saw that there was a dog groomers’. I went upstairs and introduced myself and weaselled my way into working up there.

“Ever since then, there was no doubt in my mind that this is what I wanted to do. I’ve always absolutely loved dogs. I’ve always known that I wanted to do something with them. Whether it was dog sitting, dog grooming or dog walking.”

Miss Cookson, who has two dogs of her own, a cockapoo Wilko, 10, and rescue dog, called Bailey, two, completed a level two diploma in dog grooming at Writtle College in Essex, which she finished in June.

She then began kitting out her home after being spurred on by her mother, Jacqui, a HR consultant and father, Doug, who works in marketing for pharmaceutical companies.

Miss Cookson bought herself a grooming table and kit including clipper blades, dog-friendly shampoos, scissors, clippers and protective equipment for the bath.

She said: “It was nearing the end of my course at university. My mum said to me, ‘why don’t you just start dog grooming or something’ because she knew I was really going through a hard time in performing arts college mentally.

“I always try to think of something that would make me happy and I felt this was it. To my mother’s dismay, I asked her if I could use the downstairs bathroom because that’s the only space in my house that I could do it. Through gritted teeth, she said, ‘yes, sure’. But I can put it all up and put it all down. I collapse the table, I hide everything in the cupboard so they still have their space and I’m not completely overtaking it.”

She added: “My parents have been amazing. They just want to give me the best start in this business because they know how difficult it is setting up businesses and just how expensive everything is at the moment and life in general.”

Miss Cookson, who also works one day a week at Barking Mad dog groomers’ in Pangbourne, started off by offering free treatments to dogs to get her name out there and now feels confident enough to launch her business.

She said she wants to help take the fear out of dog grooming by observing their behaviours and taking it one step at a time.

Miss Cookson said: “Instead of it being, this dog is a cockapoo, that will take this amount of time, I look at it on a case by case basis. If I have a dog that’s a bit nervous I will give it as much time as it needs so that when they want to come back, they’re not scared of the whole process.

“Some larger dogs are difficult in a smaller space and I never want to say no to anyone because I literally want to help any dog. For me, grooming is helping a dog rather than it being a business for me.

“Some dogs might not have had a good experience at other groomers. People say, ‘oh, my dog hates grooming’. I think that with most dogs, you can turn it around. Especially if you get in with them young.

“If they have good experiences with people like me who are willing to give them the time, they may be less nervous.

“I wish grooming wasn’t such a scary thing for the dogs. That’s how I look at it and I want to change that.”

Miss Cookson keeps herself up to date by reading dog care and behaviour books.

She said: “It’s making sure you’re checking their behaviour. I read up a lot on dog behaviour and what they’re trying to tell you with their body. I just want to be as knowledgeable as possible about them so the experience can be as smooth as possible.

“I love that I can do it in my own time. In another groomer’s a groom may take one hours to two hours, whereas I have the freedom and flexibility to take as long as that dog needs.”