History

On May 1st 1991, a somewhat younger Christine Meyer opened the doors of Wags and Whiskers for the very first time. Christine was already active in the dog world at that time. She was showing purebred Affenpinchers in the conformation ring, grooming and handling the dogs herself. She loved this breed for their diminutive stature but plucky attitude, their teddy bear faces and their zealous loyalty to their humans.

Christine moved into the Portuguese Water Dogs, again breeding and showing these loyal, devoted pets. Christine joined both the Portuguese Water Dog Club of America and also Nutmeg Portuguese Water Dog Club becoming an active and involved member of both. She and others collaborated in a landmark study with University of Utah known as the Georgie Project. This was designed in part to save the genetically threatened Water Dog breed through selective breeding programs. There were only a few hundred of these dogs left in the world, when the University of Utah professors, specifically Dr. Gordon Lark, initiated this study. The amazing work began in the 1990’s before DNA testing was common place and studied the genetics, physiology and diseases of the breed. This lead to our modern understanding of many canine diseases including cardiomyopathy, canine hip dysplasia, Progressive Retinal Atrophy and Addison’s disease.

Wags and Whiskers first accepted dogs and cats, but cats don’t like water and dogs don’t like cats, so that quickly changed to the current dogs only policy.

Wags and Whiskers quickly grew to where Christine needed assistants to help her. She trains and mentors these people over many years teaching them the mechanics and especially the philosophy of providing care for man’s best friend. Wags and Whiskers employees stay for many years and develop a wealth of knowledge and experience themselves.

Christine knows that each of these pets is precious to those that bring them to her and takes this responsibility very seriously. Each dog is handed off to an employee who sees the dog safely to an open holding cubicle or crate which is always in plain sight of at least two employees. Dogs are always under control so no fighting can occur and all new clients are evaluated for vaccinations and behavior. Today’s Wags and Whiskers is equipped with a modern state of the art hydrotherapy tub which can accommodate the largest mastiff who will be able to walk up the ramp to enter the tub and the smallest Yorkie who can be carefully lifted into the tub. The salon is staffed with five full-time employees with nearly forty years of experience between them.

The front room contains high-end, high-tech dog foods, frozen raw foods, leads and collars, dog beds and toys as well as many other products. This is meant as a convenience for humans who bring their pets to us for care.

2014 brings a year of change with the launching of this website and modernization of the up-front products with an emphasis on those made in the USA. Our already very complete list of services is supplemented with our new PlaqClnz doggie dental cleaning system.