Along with about 20 million other people cruising the Information highway, professional pet groomers are jockeying for position to merge from the on-ramps to the high-speed lanes. While others queued up, one groomer leapt into cyberspace, creating The Pet Groomers Pages on the World Wide Web
A mobile groomer from Kansas City, Kan., Joyce Laughery got her feet wet—and her typing fingers limbered up-in the Dog Groom Room, a popular hangout on America Online. Created less than two years ago by and for groomers, Dog Groom Room now boasts 100+ devotees who key in to join the conversation at 9 p.m. EST Sunday and Monday nights.
Befriending others in the Dog Groom Room led Laughery (screen name DogGroomer) to a wider calling.
"Grooming has always been a rather lonely profession for me,” said Laughery, Kansas City’s only mobile groomer. She longed to take that chat room experience to the next level.
On Sept. 24, that’s exactly what she did by establishing her own beachhead on the Internet. A dream became reality when Laughery beamed out her message: “The Web page is up and running.”
To find it, key in http://www.wp.com/ petgroomers.
With a click on her mailbox, you can access a "Letter from Joyce", which is, in fact, her mission statement. With a straightforward Midwesterner’s approach, she urges groomers to dispel old wives’ tales and other misinformation about their profession by “taking a polite, united stand.”
That tactic is leftover from early in her 17-year grooming career, when she sought to organize a local groomers’ organization, but found the logistics too daunting.
"With the start of the World Wide Web, my dreams have been realized in the biggest possible way," she said. “I have been fortunate enough to be able to grant all the groomers in the world a lively, active groomers association that they can interact with over their morning coffee, while still in their pajamas-or at 3 a.m. on a sleepless night!”
By following the menu down the page, users can access the Bulletin Board, a combination of want ads and information with entries from all over the country.
For Minnesota groomer Llndy Martin, for example, a query about the Clipper Vac elicited a reply from Daryl Conner, a groomer in Tennessee, who related a favorable experience with the system and explained how to obtain an informational video from the manufacturer.
A click on “Kat Hog’s Articles” will bring up some familiar humor pieces from this magazine, written by yours truly under the screen name Kat Hog.
For more chuckles, click “Groomer Funnies,” a page designed by Sue Wiesendanger of Houston, who surfs the net under the name Seleena. It features pet-related cartoons guaranteed to tickle any groomer’s funny bone.
Click on “Grooming CHAT” and up pops the smiling face of groomer Lisa van de Giessen, owner of The Cutting Edge in a Baltimore suburb. As “Simmba”, she opens her Internet Relay Chat room Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST, offering the novice—or “newbie” in cyberspeak—detailed directions to access the room. A virtual primer on available software accompanies the cheerful invitation from this avid chatter and breeder of Bouvlers.
Next on the interactive menu is “Grooming Schools,” where you can see information on a subject close to Laughery’s heart: Her own school, Tender Touch Dog and Cat Grooming, opened in January.
Under the screen name. ProGroomR, scissor-wizard Mario DiFante of East Providence, R.L, provides an industry update titled “Grooming seminars and Contests”.
From there, surfers can crawl “The Mall,” checking out ads from DermaPet, FleaBusters, Oxyfresh Pet Products and Up The Creek, a canine-related clothing company.
And that’s only the beginning. Beneath her homegrown home page, Laughery provides links to the American Kennel Club. With a click, the distinguished organization’s logo pops into view, accompanied by eight icons that open pages on its history, dog breeds and breeders, the Breed of the Month, discussion groups, events and awards as well as information on how to register your dog.
Traveling to "The Pet Pages", you'lI find Max, a large mixed-breed dog who says hello in six kilobytes of audible sound. He’s followed by "How to Put Your Pet on the Web with Pet Pages". It’s Easy and It’s Free.”
Under the Acme Pet button, you can access “Acme Pet’s Canine Directory: Your Guide to Dogs on the Internet,” complete with activity calendars, a canine glossary, breeder information, vaccination schedules, personal home pages of dogs and their owners, chat rooms, video guides and the lowdown on shelters, clubs and bulletin boards.
"Dogs, Dogs, Dogs" offers Cindy Tittle Moore’s excellent home page, rec.pets,dogs.faq. With almost 30 links to other dog information, all of which Moore, updates religiously, this page ranks in the top 5 percent of all Websites.
Then there’s Webmaster Antonio Ocasio, whose Pets Are Loving Support page is under “And More Dogs.” It provides information from a California based nonprofit agency that helps people with AIDS keep their pets, delivering free pet food, providing foster care and placing companion animals in adoptive homes when necessary.
Recent additions to Laughery’s site are two links to informational pages by groomer/entrepreneur Pat Kansoer, including a section titled ‘Grooming Bathing and Other Martial Arts.”
As if this informational smorgasbord is not enough, Webmaster Laughery sometimes offers purely whimsical activities, such as a recent link to “A Tour of the White House,” the President’s own home page.
The World Wide Web is nothing more than an interconnected collection of 50,000 sites, with 1,000 new ones added each day. Some online services now give simple how-to instructions to help their members create their own little places in space.
“Creating a Web page is really simple once you learn some basics,” said Laughery. She downplays her own ingenuity, but admits her mastery did require determination.
“My husband will be very happy to tell you how many thousands of hours I’ve spent in front of this thing,” she said.
It’s hard to believe now, but when she got her first computer two years ago, Laughery grew so frustrated she returned it two days later.
But, used to “getting the bull by the horns after the first go-round and becoming determined to beat it,” Laughery tenaciously learned the new technology.
Most of the space she uses for the Pet Groomers Pages is free, with the exception of the first page. Although she has spent more hours on these pages than she can count, Laughery claims her newfound passion has not cut into her grooming business.
“But it takes up all my nonworking hours except for one or two now and then for my sweet, understanding husband,” she said. “And lots of times, he has to share that with the kids or the grandbaby.”
At this point, Laughery can’t predict whether The Pet Groomers Pages will have a commercial àpplication. But it’s easy to predict another sort of success: By late February, 4,445 visitors had explored the pages. Word is out.
" ‘I would love to devote full time to it, but l have to earn my daily bread somehow", she said.
So far, Laugherys biggest surprise was an e-mail message from a groomer in Scotland who wanted to start a groomers association there. Seeking to break off from the British Groomers Organization, the writer wanted her message out on the Web, demonstrating the global-village quality Internet enthusiasts find so enthralling.
The easiest way to access the Internet is through services such as America Online, eWorld, CompuServe, Delphi or Prodigy. But Netcom, PSI and other monthly flat-rate providers with local phone connections offer far more access at a much lower price.
With 8,000 mailing lists and 10,000 Usenet Groups, the World Wide Web Is all about communication and information.
Who would have thought that the groomers on-ramp to the information highway would be built by a self-described “little old gal from the Heartland,” who’s not afraid to take the bull by the horns?
In the beginning Joyce Laughery sought no financial underwriting for her outpost in cyberspace. But as the Pet Groomers Pages grow, Laughery finds them more difficult to maintain.
So she did what she had to do: Add a highlighted link asking for donations and sponsors.
She writes, “At present (the pages) are financed and maintained solely by one little groomer in Kansas, working with an archaic machine that desperately needs upgrading. Donations are gratefully accepted for the continued development and upgrading of these pages.”
She charges a nominal fee — sometimes as low as $10.00 — to add a link to The Pet Groomer Pages or to create and maintain pages for commercial interests.
Although leading industry manufacturers have offered to underwrite the cost of producing the pages, Laughery does not want to lose her independence or her status as a voice for the groomers themselves.
To recognize her special “angels” Laughery will place an asterisk next to contributors names in the groomer pages.
Kathy Salzberg, CMG, owns and operates The Village Groomer (Walpole, Mass.)
She has been grooming for more than 20 years and serves on the board of directors of the New England
Pet Grooming Professionals Inc.