Groom My Friend, Cat and Exotic Spa & Boutique

07/24/2024

2 Cat Deshed appointments available tomorrow with Holly and Alex! Message Groom My Friend to get in! Online booking isn’t currently available for BL

07/10/2024

OUR CAT ROOM IS OPEN!!! You can now receive services at BOTH of our locations in Big Lake and Elk River! They are private grooming rooms away from the dogs!

03/03/2024

We are announcing exciting news on Monday!!!

12/06/2023

📣 IT’S OFFICIAL! We have moved all of our appointments to other locations! You can now reach us at Becker and Elk River! We need to make some renovations before we can bring cats/exotics to Big Lake.
Mondays- Elk River with Holly (Salon will be closed to all dogs)
Tuesdays- Becker with Sam
Wednesdays through Fridays will be in Elk River with Holly.

We are so excited to finally offer cat and exotic appointments 5 days a week!

11/22/2023

Check out some of the kitties we have seen this Holiday Season! We are just shuffling a few things and we will be booking kitties in our other locations! Stay tuned!

11/15/2023

Hello!
We have made the difficult decision to close our cat and exotic location. Holly, Alex, and Sam are not only cat groomers, but they work in other locations as well. It’s been very challenging to travel back in forth, handle another social media, phone calls, etc…. All while Holly and Alex are traveling a couple times a month for grooming competitions. With that being said, we will be offering our cat services at all three other locations now! This allows us to communicate more effectively, have more flexibility in appointments, and can accommodate our families with cats and dogs better! Big lake will be getting its own private space to do cats and exotics, but is in the planning process. For now, Elk River will continue to be closed to dogs on Mondays and will allow us to focus on our kitties/exotics who don’t handle dog sounds well. Tuesdays we will close our Becker location to dogs so that we can groom cats/exotics there with no dogs present. Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays we will be in Elk River in our own cat/exotic room. Dogs will be in a separate part of the building on those days, but won’t come in contact with them. We are preparing ourselves for some exciting next steps in 2024! In December, we will be dissolving this page sadly as we want to make communication smoother for our clients.

09/26/2023

Cats! We have had some designs coming in for Halloween and it’s been a blast! We are trying to open up more appointments for kitties, so don’t hesitate to reach out here on social media if you need to book an appointment!

09/16/2023

🐾🐱🐶 Are you looking for career working with pets? Our Grooming Assistants help our Pet Stylists and Bathers with daily operations. They answer phones, book appointments, complete housekeeping, learn to make bows and bandanas, care for the pets, and learn to bath and dry. This is considered our entry level position as we teach the foundations of our industry in this role. We develop our Grooming Assistants to the Bather and Brusher role. Bather and Brushers take their own appointments after they have mastered the Grooming Assistant role. Both positions have a certification program through Barkleigh. We provide a strong educational background for our team to be solid in skin and coat care, working with seniors, puppies, pets with disabilities, and anxious pets. We consider ourselves a holistic groomer that embraces the science behind pet grooming. Once an experienced and proficient bather, we offer the certification program to become a Pet Stylist! This is a thorough education in pet history, anatomy, breed types, haircuts, and safe handling. We also provide a technical teaching to ensure our stylists are well rounded. Holly, a Professional Groomer of 19 years, NDGAA Member, ISCC Member, Competitive Groomer, holds a certificate in Dog Massage, Cat Groomer, and Hand-stripper, will provide the technical training. We are very invested in our team members and want them to be confident in their skills and we provide support and customize our teaching to provide the best learning experience possible.

Required Skills:
You have to have passion for pets, their owners, and want to grow in skills! The rest we will teach and provide education!

Also needs to be a team player! We work all together in our salon to provide the most exceptional experience for pets and clients!

We take pictures of our clients and work with social media. You will want to be savvy with social media platforms and we can help teach how to take photos of pets!

⚠️ You will have to lift sometimes more than 50lbs. Pets move and sit. We have to be agile and we stand for nearly the entire shift. Pets can bite out of fear and we have to be react quickly. You will be slobbered on, peed on, pooped on…etc… this job can be gross. These are pets that need us to provide care for them. It is not glamorous, so you need to be able to exercise patience, endurance, and be able to handle medical issues. We find open wounds, ticks, lumps, bumps, skin infections, ear infections, blood, and you will need to be able to stomach these situations to provide first aid, education to the clients, and we refer to veterinarians.

Hours:
We are open 7:30-5pm Monday through Friday and 7:30-3pm on Saturdays. We are closed on Sundays! We have different shift times based on the needs of our teams and can work outside of these hours for our clients if we choose to. So hours are flexible! Our full time positions are 8.5 hours with 30 minutes lunches unless you would like an hour. We are flexible! We are pretty relaxed about breaks, but we provide two 15 minutes breaks too.

Time off:
We encourage self care! In our small business, we put family first. You can take as much time as you need to attend family functions, make appointments, and vacation within reason. We take off for major Holidays like Memorial Day, New Year’s, the 4th of July, and Labor Day. As a Christian company, we provide time off around Holidays to spend time with your friends and family. We take off Thanksgiving and Black Friday. We are closed Christmas Eve, Day, and the day after to recover after the pre-Christmas rush. If you have any questions about time off, feel free to ask!

Benefits:
We provide $300 for continuing education experience each year. We encourage our employees to stay on top of the industries latest tools, techniques, new services, and trends.

We have amazing time off, did we mention that?

We offer assistance with sharpening to keep equipment sharp and safe!

We work with industry professionals and are excited to be partnering for private lessons.

We provide a discount on our boutique items to our staff!

We provide our staff with all products including the creative supplies!

Pay:
Our employees are W2. We provide commission or hourly options. These are based on experienced and only discussed during the interview process. Tips are 💯 the employees. We accept card and cash tips. Our team is paid every other Friday.

If you are interested in joining our teams, don’t hesitate to reach out! You can send your resumes to [email protected] and message us directly through social media.

09/15/2023

Ooftah! Kitty shedding season is here! Kitties are getting ready for their fall coats for sure! If you haven’t, book your kitty for their next deshed!

08/03/2023

Ronan wants you to know we are expanding our hours for the cat salon! We will be starting officially on Thursday in a couple weeks!

07/10/2023

Official 2023 Community Voting Awards Platform for St. Cloud, MN. Where the community votes for their favorites every year.

05/29/2023

From all of us at Groom My Friend, Happy Memorial Day! Thank you to all that have served our country and we want to remember those that paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedom! We couldn’t enjoy this beautiful day with out you. Thank you.

05/09/2023

This kiddo wants you to know we had two deshed appointments open up for today or you can get in for some nail trims!!!! Message, call, or you can go online to book!

04/09/2023

HAPPY EASTER! We love seeing kitties celebrating Holidays! Leave in the comments your kitties enjoying today’s Holiday!

04/07/2023

We had a cancellation today! Text or call 612-322-8661!

04/06/2023

Deshed time!!!! We are working on opening up more appointments for cats currently!

03/15/2023

Sam has added more openings tomorrow afternoon! Call, message or go online to get set up with an appointment! 💕

03/06/2023

Welcome shedding season 😂 have you scheduled yet?!

02/22/2023

Our dog salons are currently making some exciting changes. At this salon, we are not making any changes to our cat or exotic service prices. We are working on some exciting new services that we will be offering and will continue to update our website when we can to reflect it!

02/22/2023

Be safe out there!

❄️ All locations are CLOSED for today. We will monitor the weather, but we are planning on being open tomorrow with reduced hours. This may change weather providing. We are answering our phones today, so if you have questions, want to schedule, we will answer during our normal business hours.

02/21/2023

Happy National Love Your Pet Day! Let’s see those kitties! Meet Holly and Alex’s newest addition to the Baker family! His name: He who must not be named. He is a white Persian!

02/15/2023

Book this service by messaging us today! We have two appointments this Saturday morning available or next week!

02/14/2023

Happy Valentine’s Day!!! These kitties are freshly deshedded and mat free! They smell amazing are so soft after their grooming sessions! 💕💘 We have two deshed appointments available this Saturday morning if your kitty needs to get in! Shedding season is in full swing for kitties!

02/06/2023

This was put together by Purrocious Styles Feline Designs LLC! It’s an awesome awareness guide to why we cannot shave all the way down the legs of cats. If you have any questions about cat grooming, don’t hesitate to reach out!

02/04/2023

Poppy is shocked 😳 you didn’t make a grooming appointment yet! The hair is flying!

02/04/2023

Poppy is shocked 🙀 that you haven’t booked your next appointment yet for your 🐈‍⬛ kitty friend! Despite what the groundhog said, cats are shedding like crazy right now! If a cats coat isn’t brushed out and they shed, it may be come impacted or begin to mat! Message us if you see this happening and we can get your kitty in for a deshed!

02/02/2023

SO HONORED! Thank you Canvas Rebel for taking the time to interview Holly and learn about how Groom My Friend was created. If you are curious about Alex and Holly’s journey to being small business owners, be sure to check out this article!

We're excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Holly Baker. We hope you'll enjoy our conversation with Holly below. Holly, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard. Pe...

01/31/2023

We have a couple openings left tomorrow with Sam and a few on Friday afternoon with Holly! Book your kitties next appointment soon! Shedding season is early with kitties 🐈‍⬛ Let us help your cat feel their best and prevent matting with a good deshed brush out!

01/28/2023

🥳🤩 We are soooo EXCITED to be recognized as the Best Best Pet Grooming Salon! We are so incredibly honored, proud, and feel very bless to receive this award! Thank you to Star News in Elk River and the community who voted for us!!!

01/24/2023

Mondays are tough! These kitties got some amazing deshedding done today! If your cat is developing matting or you are sweeping more often, then it’s time to come in! Message us or book online now at www.GroomMyFriend.com