000-000-0000 · Tue–Fri 8–6, Sat 8–5, Sun 10–4
Dog & cat grooming · Woodside, Queens
Full grooms, bath and brush, breed trims, de-shedding, hand-stripping, cat grooming in a separate quiet room, and walk-in nails — three minutes from the 61st Street–Woodside station since 2011. One groomer with one animal at a time, every pet hand-dried, no cage dryers and no sedation, and a price agreed before the clippers come out.
Why people stay
There is no shortage of grooming shops in Queens, and most of them will cut your dog's hair perfectly well. These are the four answers clients give when we ask them, a few years in, why they still drive past three of them to get here.
We look at the coat, ask what you want, and tell you the price and the time before anything starts. If the coat turns out to be worse underneath than it looked on top, we stop and call you rather than carrying on and adding it to the bill.
You book a time and your pet is groomed at that time. There is no holding bay full of animals who have been waiting their turn since eight in the morning. Most dogs are here for two to three hours from the moment they arrive.
Every animal is hand-dried by the person grooming it, and nothing is ever left alone with a dryer running. We do not sedate — that is a veterinary decision for a veterinarian, and a salon offering it is offering something it should not.
If a coat is matted tight to the skin, the kind thing is to clip it off and grow it back properly, not to drag a comb through it for two hours. We will tell you that, explain what the coat will look like afterwards, and let you decide.
What we do
21 services on 61st Street, from a $20 walk-in nail trim to a three-hour de-shed on a newfoundland. Nobody here is paid a commission on what they recommend, which is why you will sometimes be talked out of the thing you came in asking for.
Dog Grooming
The complete appointment for a dog who needs the works: a coat check, a bath, a full hand-dry, a haircut suited to the coat in front of us, nails, ears and a sanitary tidy, priced before anything starts.
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Cat & Small Pet
A full cat groom — bath, hand-dry, comb-out and nails — in a separate quiet room with its own door, booked at roughly twice the length the job needs, with no sedation, ever.
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Dog Grooming
The no-haircut appointment for a dog who needs washing and untangling rather than clipping: two washes on most coats, a full hand-dry, a brush-out, nails, ears and a sanitary tidy.
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Dog Grooming
A bath, a high-velocity hand-dry and real undercoat work for double-coated dogs, built to remove loose undercoat rather than cut it off — we do not shave a double coat except on a veterinarian's advice.
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Bath, Skin & Coat
De-matting is $25 per 15 minutes, capped at 30 by policy. Past that, the honest answer is often a short clip and a plan to grow the coat back — we will tell you which, and why, before we start.
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Nails, Teeth & Quick Visits
Nails clipped for $20, or clipped and ground smooth for $30 so nothing catches on your floors or your legs. Walk in whenever we are quiet, or come to the Saturday morning walk-in nail clinic.
Read moreThe price
The thing people dread about a grooming shop is not the haircut. It is being handed a bill at the end with forty dollars of de-matting on it that nobody mentioned at nine in the morning. So we took that possibility away entirely.
You get a price before the clippers come out, not after. We look at your animal, feel the coat, ask what you want, and tell you what that costs and how long it takes. If we get into the coat and find it is not what it looked like from the outside, we stop and call you before we carry on. Nobody collects a pet here and meets a number they have not already agreed to.
Safety
These are the three things that go wrong in this trade, and all three go wrong for the same reason: they are what a shop does when it wants to groom more animals in a day than it has hands for.
Every pet here is hand-dried at the table by the person grooming it, which takes longer and costs us money, and is not negotiable. There is no heated cage dryer in the building and there never has been. And we do not sedate, because sedation is a veterinary decision belonging to a veterinarian who has examined the animal — a grooming salon offering it is offering something it has no business offering.
Reasons people call
It happens to almost everyone with a curly coat, and it is not a moral failing. What matters now is an honest look under the top layer, a straight answer about what can be saved, and a plan that means it does not happen again. Sometimes that is two hours of careful work. Sometimes it is a short clip and a fresh start, and we will say so.
Long-haired cats reach a point where the mats are tight to the skin and combing genuinely hurts. Ours are seen in a separate room with no dog anywhere near, on a longer slot than the job needs, and we work at the speed the cat allows rather than the speed the book wants.
The first appointment decides how a dog feels about grooming for the next fifteen years, so we do not treat it as a haircut. It is a short, cheap, deliberately boring visit: the table, the noise, the water, a brush, a treat, and home. The proper haircut comes later.
Standing for an hour is a lot to ask of a fourteen-year-old with stiff hips. Senior appointments are booked long and broken into pieces, the table is dropped to the floor so nobody has to be lifted, and we will happily do half a groom today and the other half on Thursday.
Everything we do
The full appointment: a bath, a proper hand-dry, and a haircut that suits the coat your dog actually has. Everything from a wash-and-tidy to a breed trim, hand-stripping for wire coats, and a first haircut for a puppy who has never seen a pair of clippers.
Cats are not small dogs and rabbits are not small cats. These appointments happen in a separate quiet room, on a different rhythm, with no dryer noise and no dog within earshot — and they are booked longer than the job needs, because a rushed cat is a cat you cannot finish.
Everything that happens in the tub and afterwards: soothing oatmeal baths, a bath to wash fleas and ticks off a coat, deep cleaning for the dog who found something unspeakable, conditioning for a coat that has gone dry, and the honest de-matting conversation.
The fifteen-minute jobs that do not need a whole appointment. Nails clipped or ground smooth, ears wiped out, a sanitary and paw tidy between full grooms, cosmetic tooth brushing, and walk-in slots for the things you suddenly notice on a Saturday morning.
Coat types
It depends on the coat rather than the breed, and mixed breeds routinely have two. Curly and wool coats want a groomer every four to six weeks; double coats can go three months and then need ninety minutes of undercoat work. Here is the honest interval for each.
Every 4–6 weeks. Poodles, doodles of every kind, bichons, portuguese water dogs, bedlingtons.
Every 6–10 weeks. Schnauzers, most terriers, wire dachshunds, brussels griffons, airedales.
Every 4–8 weeks. Yorkies, maltese, shih tzus, afghans, long-coated chihuahuas, papillons.
Every 8–12 weeks, more in spring and autumn. Huskies, german shepherds, golden retrievers, corgis, bernese, akitas, chows.
Plans
A plan is not compulsory and about half our clients do not have one. But if your dog is on a four-week cycle anyway, the plan costs less than the same visits bought one at a time, and it is the single most reliable way never to have the shave-down conversation.
No feebook when you need it
The default, and what about half our clients use. Book when you need it, pay for what you get, nothing recurring and nothing to cancel.
Best for: One easy-coated dog, and no wish to be signed up to anything.
Start hereMost popular
$18a month, one pet
For the coat that needs a groomer on a rhythm. Your slot is held for the year, the price is fixed, and the small things between visits stop costing anything.
Best for: A dog on a six to eight week haircut cycle whose coat you would like to stop thinking about.
Start here$34a month, one pet
The plan for a coat that genuinely needs a groomer every three or four weeks. It costs less than the same visits bought one at a time, and it is the single most reliable way never to have the shave-down conversation.
Best for: Doodles, double coats, and anything that mats if you look away for a fortnight.
Start hereThe people
Seven people, all of whom you can ask for by name. Whoever starts your pet finishes your pet — it matters for the haircut, and it matters far more for a nervous dog, who has to trust one person for two hours rather than three people for forty minutes each.
Owner & Senior Groomer
Grooming since 1998 · here since 2011
Dana opened the 61st Street salon in 2011 after thirteen years working in other people's shops, mostly because she wanted to run a book with time in it. She still grooms four days a week, still takes the difficult coats herself, and is the person who will tell you plainly that your dog needs clipping off rather than sell you two hours of de-matting.
English
Lead Groomer, Dogs
Grooming since 2007 · here since 2012
Rosa runs the dog side of the floor and takes most of the doodles, which in this neighbourhood is most of the work. She is unusually good at getting a curly coat back to a length you can actually maintain at home, and unusually blunt about how often it needs brushing to stay there.
English, Spanish
Feline Groomer
Grooming cats since 2011 · here since 2015
Mei-Lin only grooms cats, and only in the quiet room. Her appointments are booked at nearly twice the length the job needs, because a cat that is not rushed is a cat you can finish, and one appointment you complete is worth four you abandon. She would rather do half a cat today than a whole frightened one.
English, Mandarin, Cantonese
In their words
Illustrative comments written for this demonstration site. They are not real client reviews, and for that reason they are deliberately not marked up as review data anywhere in this page's code.
They told me my dog needed clipping off instead of selling me three hours of de-matting. I did not enjoy hearing it and it was obviously the right call.
First salon that has ever finished my cat. Turns out the trick is not sedation, it is booking twice as long and not caring if it takes three visits.
I asked them to shave my husky for summer and got a polite lecture instead. He came home with less undercoat than I thought he owned and much happier.
My old boy cannot stand for long any more. They dropped the table to the floor and did him in two halves across one week. Nobody else offered that.
Questions
A full groom — bath, hand-dry, haircut, nails, ears and a sanitary tidy — runs $85 for a small dog up to 20lb, $105 for a medium dog, $135 for a large dog and $165 for anything over 80lb. A bath and brush without a haircut is $55 to $110 on the same scale. Those figures assume a coat in reasonable condition; a badly matted coat takes longer and costs more, and we will tell you that before we start rather than afterwards.
Two hours for most small dogs, two and a half for a medium dog, three or more for a big or double-coated one. You book a time and your dog is groomed at that time — there is no holding bay here full of animals who arrived at eight in the morning and are waiting their turn. Cats are booked longer than the work needs, on purpose.
It depends on the coat rather than the breed. Curly and wool coats want every four to six weeks, silky coats four to eight, wire coats six to ten, and double and smooth coats eight to twelve. There is a full breakdown by coat type, including what to do at home between visits, on our grooming schedule page.
No, and we never will. Sedation is a veterinary decision that belongs to a veterinarian who has examined the animal, and a grooming salon offering it is offering something it has no business offering. What we do instead is book longer, break the groom into pieces, and stop when an animal has had enough.
No. There is no heated cage dryer in this building and there never has been. Every animal is hand-dried at the table by the person grooming it, and nothing is ever left alone with a dryer running. It takes longer and it costs us money, and it is not negotiable.
Possibly, and if we think that is the kind thing we will say so plainly. We will de-mat where de-matting is reasonable — up to thirty minutes, which is our policy limit — but past that, dragging a comb through a felted coat hurts, and a short clip with a plan to grow it back properly is the better answer. You decide; we tell you honestly what each choice means.
A price agreed before the clippers come out
Call the salon with your pet's breed, weight and roughly when it was last groomed, and we will give you the price and the honest timing on the phone. Nails, ears and sanitary tidies are walk-in whenever we are quiet, and Saturday morning is a dedicated walk-in nail clinic.