Heather's Place Doggy Daycare & Grooming

Growing up with family dogs, including a German Shepherd named Sheba, a Black Lab named Joey and an Australian Cattle Dog named Silver, Heather always had a love of animals. But it wasn’t until a two-day long personality assessment concluded that Heather, a former hotel manager, would be happiest working outdoors with plants or working with animals that she made a career change to reflect her true passions, eventually becoming owner and operator of Heather’s Place Doggy Daycare and Grooming.

Joining the industry relatively late at the age of 30, Heather still remembers her first day of dog washing fondly. “The first day I washed 23 dogs, which was an incredible amount of dogs,” she recalls. “While I didn’t smell very good and I had pins and needles through my ankles into my knees when I walked out of that place, I had a full heart, and that was from the knowledge that this is something I can do for the rest of my life. And that’s where I’m at now.”

After working as a dog groomer with BCSPCA for ten years, she opened Heather’s Place in 2006, initially wanting to do less grooming. “However, it turns out I’m doing more grooming, more hours and have more expenses,” says Heather. “But it’s all so worth it. I have a great bunch of people working with me who all love and care about the dogs and are always interested in learning and development. We are really all on the same page here in terms of creating an environment of positive reinforcement.”