As any cat or dog owner would know, finding a place you trust to take care of your furry friend is no easy task. Especially when it comes to grooming, leaving your pup to get up and close and personal with a pair of scissors can be just as stressful for the owner as it is for the pooch. With this in mind, Anna Rahimi set out to open her own dog grooming facility. Now, two years later, Cat Diggity Dog offers five-star service for cats and dogs alike, ensuring that each four-legged guest receives nothing but the best during their stay in the salon.
“I always loved to do hair. Always when I was younger I wanted to do hair,” said Rahimi, who came to America from Afghanistan as a young girl. “We came here and I had to work. I went to beauty school and I followed my dreams.”
Rahimi, an avid lover of all things hair, also owns and operates Hair Salon 51, a unisex hair salon in the same shopping strip as Cat Diggity Dog. It was clients at her salon complaining about their dogs receiving poor service that inspired Rahimi to expand into pet grooming.
“I love animals. I said, ‘I love to do hair, let me see if I can open [a pet salon] and hire my own groomers,’” she explained.
Having had experience owning dogs herself, Rahimi knew exactly how she wanted her pet grooming shop to operate. She made sure her groomers were properly trained and educated so they could give the level of service she would want her own pups to receive.
With the dog’s comfort level in mind, each furry guest is only in the shop for two to four hours depending on the dog’s size and condition upon entering the shop. These factors will also influence pricing for the various services available at Cat Diggity Dog.
The pet salon offers different packages for both cats and dogs like a typical wash, cut and blow dry, plus nail and ear trimmings; a simple wash, blow dry and brush out; and a special dematting bath, blow dry, nail and ear trimmings, and a teeth cleaning.
There are also specialty add-ons like blueberry facials, shed-less treatments, flea and tick prevention, oatmeal shampoos, paw pad recovery and fusion-style grooming which is a fun, specialty haircut that can include fur coloring and braiding.
With such a wide variety of services, Rahimi said her salon, with its fun, catchy name, comes from her standard of living life to the fullest.
“[A pet salon] should be a fun place, so I had to come up with a fun name. Life should be fun. Life is short, we should have fun,” she said. “You have to feel good and be happy in order to make other people feel good and happy. It starts from you. I try to be happy every day.”
Cat Diggity Dog is located at 37 Woodbury Rd. in Hicksville. For more information, call 516-396-9310 or visit catdiggitydog.com.
