Nearly 14 years ago I bought my first Airedale Terrier puppy. Hazel was bought as a pet but very soon we began showing her and my interest in preparing her coat for the show ring grew. An Airedale with their beautiful hand stripped coats is one of the most difficult coats to work but I became engrossed in this hobby. After showing for a couple of years, I decided to give up my job as a manager in insurance and start my own business as a dog groomer working with all breeds. My hobby showing dogs had introduced me to a huge array of breeds and I felt this gave me a solid background to start from. Although starting from home in a small way, my philosophy from the start was to purchase the best equipment I could afford believing that this served to reduce stress on myself and therefore for the dogs that I worked with. I have always tried to ensure that I only take on work I can cope with, even though this often means turning work away. After a short while with my husband Tony, we bought our first pet shop and grooming business Town & Country Pet Store in Orchard Street, Weston-Super-Mare. When we bought the shop, the previous owners had run the grooming side down and we started on the road to build this again. After around 4 years we chose to concentrate on the dog side of the business here and converted the shop to a dog grooming and dog accessory shop, renaming the business DOGZONE. Unfortunately, parking in Orchard Street became more and more difficult and in 2002, we made the decision to relocate the business toBleadon. Long standing customers will remember the time when we had to operate from a mobile home until we finally moved into our purpose built extension to our home premises. The problems of parking were eliminated immediately and we soon settled into our new business premises.

By 2006, we felt the need to move again and by coincidence, a former pet shop and grooming salon had become empty at Aller Parade, Oldmixon the present home for Dogzone and Parade Pets. Hopefully we are settled here for the forseeable future.