It all started with Duffy.

There was a point in my life when things felt quiet, and I was looking for a little company to fill the silence. That’s when I adopted Duffy — and for the next 18 years, he was right by my side.

Back then, taking Duffy to get groomed meant handing him over for four or five long hours. I’d watch him come home stressed and worn out every single time, and it never sat right with me. Then one day, when I went to pick him up, I found him sitting in a cage. I had never once raised Duffy in a cage — not for a single day of his life — and seeing him in one broke me into pieces.

That was the moment I decided: if grooming was going to be this hard on him, I’d learn to do it myself. I enrolled in grooming school, just so Duffy could be groomed with patience and care, on his own time, by someone who actually knew him.

The turning point came on an ordinary walk. A stranger stopped me and asked who had groomed Duffy — he looked that good. I told her I had. She asked, half-hopeful, if I’d groom her dog too. I said yes.

She loved the results. And she told everyone she knew.

One recommendation turned into another, and before long, people I’d never met were showing up with their dogs, all because someone had heard about “the woman who grooms like she actually loves dogs.” There was no grand business plan — just word of mouth, one happy dog owner at a time.

That’s how Shani’s Puppy Spa came to be. And if you ask me who really started it, I’ll tell you the truth: it was Duffy. Every dog we groom today, we groom the way I always wished someone had groomed him — unhurried, gentle, and with real care.

It’s also why you’ll never see a cage at Shani’s Puppy Spa. I don’t make clients’ pets wait around the way Duffy did. That image of him in a cage has stayed with me all these years, and it’s the reason every dog that comes through our doors is groomed promptly, without ever being left to sit and wait.