This is a story about dogs and cats, and about supply and demand. Mostly, demand.
Amy Oostema is a pet groomer in Three Forks. She worked for eight years for Valley View Clinic in Belgrade, then started her own grooming business a year and a half ago. She and her husband bought a cargo trailer, retrofitted it with flooring, insulation, and equipment, and put out a shingle.
Oostema’s new venture blossomed, and she loved being close to home and near her daughter’s day care. Then, a few weeks ago, her friends Samantha and Jeremiah Anderson were visiting. They had recently moved to Boulder, and Samantha suggested a grooming service might do well there, too.
So Oostema decided to test the market. On Aug. 7, she posted to the “Everything Boulder Montana” page on Facebook: “I am thinking of branching out. I hear there’s some need in your beautiful little town. I was thinking of making a trip with my grooming trailer, once a month maybe, if I can line up enough work for the day.”
There are all sorts of “deserts” – a word used to describe places with lack of access to important resources or services. Some communities are food deserts, disconnected from systems that provide basic nutrition; others are health care deserts or news deserts. Book deserts. Internet deserts. Rural places, per se harder to reach than urban areas, can be especially vulnerable to the desert phenomenon.
Boulder is, it turns out, a pet grooming desert.
“Interested!” Jessica Gadaire replied to Oostema’s Facebook post.
“Yes! Very interested!” echoed Sarah Norden Layng.
“I have two Pyrenees/Lab mixes that could use a grooming once a month,” wrote Marlene Kite.
“How big of dog can you do?” asked Bonita Warren.
Can you sense the desperation? And that was just the start; at least 25 people responded to Oostema’s feeler within a day. She was floored. “It exploded. It’s been overwhelming.”
Oostema thinks demand for grooming services has heightened over the last two years. “With COVID, a lot of people are staying home with their dogs,” she said — and are paying closer attention to their care.
Many Boulder residents, it seems, take their dogs and cats to grooming services in Helena or Butte. Some of those, in big-box stores, can be intimidating for a pet, as Amanda Cochran discovered with her young Labradoodle, Chewy. “We had a bad experience,” Cochran said; she’s looking for a quieter setting.
Other services are booked weeks or months ahead. “It’s a huge need,” said Layng. “I always see people asking about groomers.” Layng admits to often waiting until the last minute to have her black Labrador and golden retriever washed and cut — by which time most services are full up.
There are other pet-related needs in Boulder. The nearest veterinarians are in Helena and Whitehall; residents say they’d love to have one in town, especially for emergency service. “A vet office would be amazing!” said Christina Glueckert. Likewise a fenced dog park.
But the grooming desert may soon become a bit less parched. Oostema quickly booked an 11-hour visit in Boulder last Sunday and another full day August 21 for services that start at $50. She plans to return one Sunday in September and again in October, and then see how things go.
