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Home > Archive > Mar 6, 2008

Finding Passion, Healing in the Work She Loves
By Cami Cox
Staff Writer
Cyndy Grimmett has been on the job a long time, but she doesn't consider herself as having worked for a living.
“This is my passion,” Grimmett said. “Grooming has always been my passion. Even though I have been in the industry over 30 years, I have never worked a day in my life – never.”
Grimmett, a Certified Master Groomer (the highest rank one can achieve in the world of pet grooming), is the owner of Cyndy's Spaw For Pets in St. George, a place where pooches and other animals can get cleaned up and coiffed, and then returned to their humans looking clean and dapper.
Grimmett got her start as a clipper and beautifier of pets at a very young age.
“I had the meanest dog in America growing up – the groomers hated her. In fact, they made us go to the vet to get drugs for her, and they would only do her if she was drugged,” Grimmett said. “When I was about 12, I started grooming her myself with our horse clippers, and I had a knack for it.”
Growing up on a farm in a rural area of Orange County, Calif., Grimmett always had a special relationship with animals. She envisioned herself becoming a veterinarian or a vet's assistant as a child, but the realities of schooling redirected her plans, and she began looking more seriously at pursuing grooming as an occupation.
At age 18, Grimmett began grooming at a veterinary clinic. She increased her skill by studying from a book and gaining knowledge on the job and, eventually, opened a grooming business of her own.
“When I started my own business, I just kept hiring people who knew more than me, paid them a good wage and asked them to teach me,” she said. “After about 15 years, I knew a lot.”
Grimmett began attending trade shows and entering grooming contests as her skills increased, and she started working toward getting her certification as a groomer, finally achieving the status of Master Groomer.
In the St. George area, Grimmett owned the Groomingdales pet salon for more than 10 years, doing what she loved best on a daily basis. Then tragedy struck for her.
Grimmett lost her husband, Gerald Grimmett, in a drowning incident during the 2005 floods. Devastated by the loss, Cyndy Grimmett closed the doors of her grooming salon and put the business behind her. But she couldn't stay away for long.
“The people in this community are amazing,” she said. “The community support was incredible, I mean just incredible – not just my clients but people I didn't even know came out of the woodwork to help me.”
Doing her best to heal, Grimmett had no intention of taking up her grooming work again, but she was approached about a year after losing her husband to do consulting work for some people opening their own grooming shop in St. George. The desire to begin work again began to clamor, as did her former clients who wanted her to groom their pets again. With funds she had received from the Virgin River/Santa Clara Flood Relief group, Grimmett decided to take up her clippers once again in the work she loves so much.
“I feel empty if I don't,” she said. “I tried not being a groomer, but my life would not be as fulfilling if I didn't have my puppies.”
So Grimmett opened a new shop near the Red Cliffs Mall and began grooming again, rediscovering her passion and moving forward with life.
She is now happily working with dogs again, and it isn't just canines she makes lovely in her shop – she's also groomed cats, guinea pigs, bunnies, sheep, miniature horses and even pygmy goats in her “spaw.”
“Anything with fur,” she said. “I'm pretty well open. I would do a baby elephant; I'll do any baby. God didn't make any ugly babies.”
When all is said and done, Grimmett keeps things simple around her shop, and as long as the can continue working with the animals she loves, making them look sleek, sassy or just less shaggy, she'll be happy.
“I don't have to prove anything to anybody, and I don't have to make a billion bucks. I just want to groom,” she said.
Cyndy's Spaw For Pets is located at 435 N. 1680 East, number 15, in St. George. Animals are groomed by appointment only. To contact Cyndy's, call 251-8551.

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