06/16/2021
Hello Scrubby Friends!
All of us here at Scrubby hope that all of you are doing as well and staying as safe as possible. Once again, we can’t thank all of you enough for your support; while it’s been a very strange and difficult 15 months, we, unlike so many others are still here and it’s thanks to the best clients a business could ever hope to have, along with some timely assistance from San Bernardino County, the State of California and the Small Business Administration.
As I’m sure you all know, effective June 15th, the county is updating Covid restrictions to match those of the CDC, which means mask use is no longer mandatory except in specific instances, primarily transportation related, or if a private business chooses to implement such restrictions. We have talked extensively about what we should do in regard to this, as this is obviously a very charged topic, and we here at Scrubby do everything possible on a daily basis to minimize stress, drama and conflict. So here’s why and how we’ve decided to handle the situation.
Over the past 15 months, having worn masks pretty much every minute that we’ve been at Scrubby, we’ve noticed two major things. One, our sick days due to colds and other typical, seasonal issues dropped by over 50%. Wherein pre-Covid would have someone out sick every couple of weeks, since we’ve all been wearing masks, that hasn’t happened. Second, and even more importantly, the respiratory health of the staff has improved tremendously. We have one specific staff member who coughed relatively constantly throughout the workday, and most of us were in the habit of chewing gum constantly, as by doing so, most of the hair that we’d breathe in would be trapped in the gum and could be easily expelled every couple of hours simply by throwing out the old gum. And all of us would periodically have coughing fits or breathing issues that we simply worked through. Turns out that there is a pretty significant amount of hair and dander in the air that floats around Scrubby, and while obvious, we really didn’t understand just how significant the effect was on those who work at or self-wash dogs at Scrubby.
So we have made the decision that all staff members will continue to wear masks, and while we are not going to require those of our customers, we cannot urge you strongly enough to continue doing so when inside Scrubby. Even if you don’t blowdry your dog while at Scrubby, most everyone else does, and of course, our grooming staff does to almost every single dog we groom, as well as clipping the hair releases tiny particles of dog hair. As such, there is always a tremendous amount of hair and dander in the air, leading this to be a very contaminated breathing environment. So when you come in to Scrubby in the future, you’re going to continue seeing a fully masked staff, and while we are not going to refuse customers who wish to wash their dog without wearing a mask, we again do very strongly urge you to do so to minimize the amount of dog-related particles you breathe in while here.
The new reservation system for self-wash is working out great – once we’ve input you in the system and you’ve completed that initial appointment, you receive a link to the portal (it’s hidden, please don’t search for it, you won’t find it) and you’re able to make self-wash and nail trimming appointments at your convenience. We already have over 500 customers entered in the system and so far, we’ve had nothing but very positive feedback. If you would like to make an appointment for self wash, please email [email protected] (we do not respond to any requests on FB as we are pretty inundated with our emails).
At this time, we are also going to stay at half-capacity on our self-wash side, as we are still several staff members short. We are also going to stay closed on Tuesdays until we can add those missing staff, as going back to seven days would leave us severely short-staffed on a daily basis. Hopefully we will be able to hire multiple new staff over the next couple of months, and if by chance you know of an amazing someone that is interested in a career working with dogs, point them our way.
Thank you again so much, stay safe and we’ll look forward to seeing you soon,
Tony, Val & the Scrubby Puppy Staff
