Snazzy Pets opens in Belvidere

By Kathryn Menue

EDITOR

On Monday, Sept. 19 at 8 a.m., Snazzy Pets Grooming opened their doors to the Belvidere community – both human and animals alike.

As visitors strolled into the convenient location at 151 S. State St. in Belvidere, they were greeted with donuts, coffee, friendly faces, and sweet animals ready to be pampered.

One such animal was Snazzy the kitten, who has become the mascot for Snazzy Pets Grooming. Snazzy scampered around the facility as customers toured the grooming parlor and ventured outside for the ceremonial ribbon cutting.

“It’s exciting – very exciting,” Kayla Peterson, co-owner of Snazzy Pets said.

After the ribbon cutting, Peterson and her partner, Rhonda Surratt, along with groomer Liz Guerrer started their busy day of grooming. They had almost a full roster of appointments for their first day, including three appointments at 10 a.m.

Some of their first customers came early to attend the ribbon cutting, including little Tiki, Molly the Sheepdog, and D’Artagnan the Doberman.

The dogs had a fun time exploring the facility, playing with Snazzy the cat, and enjoying all of the attention the groomers and the visitors had to offer. The canine crew even sampled sweet treats, with D’Artagnan taking it upon himself to steal a bite of a donut from one of the customers.

A full schedule with the eager pups meant a long day of work doing what the groomers enjoy.

“We do all the grooming and everything,” Guerrer said.

Grooming at Snazzy Pets includes nail trimming, hair cutting, brushing, washing, and drying canines. They also trim cats’ nails. Once they are settled in their facility, they will offer grooming for cats as well.

To the groomers at Snazzy Pets, grooming consists of 45 minutes to an hour of pampering for little dogs alone. The bigger the dog, the longer the process will take.

Guerrer said she has a Husky, and it takes her four hours to properly groom her dog.

Four hours seems like a long time to groom a dog, but that’s just because the groomers at Snazzy Pets are very attentive and get the job done right.

They come to Belvidere with years of experience.

Surratt owns Spiffy Pets Grooming with her sister Peggy Long on N. Second St. in Machesney Park. They started out in the business because they love animals and wanted to continue in a career path that reflected their passion in caring for furry creatures.

As for Peterson, she started out by cashiering, and then was asked to help in the salon, where she fell in love with grooming.

“Nail trims are scary, but that was the only thing,” Peterson said of her first venture in pet grooming.

Now six years later, Peterson is a pro and has brought her talents to Belvidere. The decision to come to Belvidere came after Surratt and Peterson saw the lack of grooming facilities in Boone County.

Surratt said that Machesney Park has nine grooming facilities whereas Belvidere only had two. Seeing as Machesney Park and Belvidere have similar demographics, they saw Belvidere was in need of another grooming facility.

Obviously, they were right, because opening day, they had a good list of customers with more customers already starting to fill up their grooming schedule for the rest of September.

For pet owners that need a local establishment to groom their pets, call Snazzy Pets Grooming at (815) 54-GROOM (47666), or email Snazzy Pets at [email protected].

Snazzy Pets is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays 8 a.m. to noon.

For more information about Snazzy Pets, find them on Facebook, GooglePlus, and Instagram.