Meet Carolyn Black-Coffey

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carolyn Black-Coffey.

Hi Carolyn, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I became a mobile cat groomer, almost on accident. I was working in a vet clinic near Fort Worth, working towards becoming a vet tech when my grandmother living in New Braunfels started becoming ill. It became clear that she needed more care, but not enough that she couldn’t live on her own. She just needed more help around the house and driving and such. So I moved to the New Braunfels area because I was the least busy member of the family, and I wanted to spend more time with her before my -her- time ran out. A month or so in, my aunt, a prominent dog groomer in New Braunfels at the time needed some help bathing and prepping dogs in her salon. It wasn’t long before I noticed the lack of cats in that environment. My aunt said it was because most dog groomers as a whole were afraid of cats. They were aggressive, biting and scratching. Too much stress for the cat and the groomer. She said she sent all cats to the vet with a few exceptions.

Having worked at the vet long enough, I knew that meant sedation, which is not a realistic long-term solution. Especially since the majority of first-time cats needing grooming are severely matted due to age, and many vets refuse to sedate elderly pets.

Up until I got the job at the clinic, I had been bathing and trimming nails on my own (only ever short-haired) cats. I had already learned how to shave cats in prep for surgery, and my aunt had taught me dog grooming basics. I thought I would like to give cat grooming a shot. So I ordered a book from this new online bookstore called Amazon on how to groom cats, and I asked my aunt to start accepting the catcalls. Pun intended. I got practice, but I could see the dog grooming salon was not ideal for cats, even if I worked outside dog grooming hours.

It wasn’t long before a client called that lived right down the street from my grandma. They had recently become home bound and asked if I could pick up their cat and bring him back after his grooming appointment. I asked them if I could just visit them at their home because I knew this cat. Schlockett, -their grandson couldn’t pronounce “chocolate”. A big Chantilly cat, black with a secondary color just like chocolate. He was fat and couldn’t reach his back and tail to groom, so he needed a much hated sanitary clip. He hated it so much that we had a joke about him. Schlockett always poops in your pockett. Because he did. His parents had to give him pills just to handle the visit to the groomer. So I asked them if I could do the deed in their kitchen.

And they said yes. And Schlockett didn’t poop in my pockett. He was a total sweetie.

Game changed. That’s the only way we work now. I realized all the fuss was because we took them out of their home.

So now the cat is happy because he gets gentle care in his own territory. The Parent is happy because of my clinical experience, my way with cats and that they get to watch us work. All of our new clients talk about how hard it is to find a cat groomer, too. The vet is happy because I see our mutual clients more often and I know when a cat needs to be referred to them. I’m happy because I feel like a hero every time I come across a matted cat who needs releasing from his painful matted prison.

That was around early 2007. Since then, I have taught my husband, who is an Irish native how to groom cats and my daughter in the DFW area as well. I had no choice, the phone rings, and the email requests come. All because folks have heard of how we work and they love it.

Now we are currently in the process of designing our first franchise in the Austin area. We hope to entice a whole generation of vet techs who want a change of gig to join us and become mobile cat groomers, thereby setting up a more solid link between the parent, the vet and the groomer.

We have big plans for the future of Cat Grooming in Texas, so please follow us and hopefully cheer us on!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road. We are regularly underestimated. We try to find humor in that, though, and we end up impressing any skeptics about our process. It hasn’t been a particularly hard road either, come to think about it. We are blessed because we only meet people who love their cat enough to look for something like Carolyns Mobile Cat Grooming in the first place.

Our hardships include loving thousands of cats, and many of them are elderly when we meet them. I, we, our family have been doing this long enough now that even some of the kittens we know have begun to age out.

Another painful aspect of our job is sometimes getting bitten or scratched. Luckily, that doesn’t happen very often.

In general, we have been blessed to make it through two economic disasters, 2008 and 2020. Somehow, even in those times our clients still see a need to call us if their kitty-their baby- is matted and needs help. And those folks keep telling their friends, clients, coworkers, neighbors about us, too! This is an honor, not a hardship.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I, Carolyn, specialize in grooming elderly, matted cats. These cats are typically frail, in their late teens, early 20’s, and weigh less than 9 lbs, often much less. They have lost the ability to groom themselves anymore because of arthritis, muscle loss and the onset of other age-related diseases. These cats require a delicate and sure hand, much patience, and fine-tuned understanding of a cat’s anatomy when put under the stress of first being matted and also being released from the matting, which can be time-consuming. These cats are not candidates for sedation in a clinical setting because of their delicate state, thus have been largely left to live their final months in pain due to pulling of the skin, sometimes to the point of abrasion. Cat parents who have elderly cats have loved those cats for a long time. They do not want their final time to be full of pain. As a company, my husband Roy, and my daughter, Rose and I are all capable of everything from a nail trim, brushing, bathing, all the way up to full regular grooming, including extreme matting situations in normal aged/weighted cats. We can apply flea medication and assist with first aid, and we can let you know when something isn’t quite right with kitty and advise you to take her to the vet.

What sets us apart from others is our process of working in the home instead of a van or a vet clinic combined with our experience working exclusively with cats since 2007.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
My parents were very young, and so I was raised by them and their parents, so I was reared by a village of sorts. I loved cats, bugged them all the time. I have a picture of myself asleep in a box top around age four. On the back it says, “My daughter fell asleep pretending to be a cat!” Several of my Halloween costumes were cats.

I was observant, liked to read, had a ton of hobbies, including dance, which I still love to do. I was good in school and was involved in Journalism and choir in high school. I was close to my maternal Grandmother, and from her I learned most of my love of gardening and half of my cooking skills.

I was also close to one of my paternal grandfathers (I have two dads). The rest of my gardening and cooking love came from him.

I had my daughter just before turning 19 and had a variety of jobs until I finally went to work starting as a vet assistant for Dr. Munsel at his clinic near Fort Worth.

Pricing:

• Full Monty (full haircut, bath, nails) $100-$250
• Bootie Call (Sanitary cut, nails, brush out, bath) $60-$130
• Nails w/Benefits (Nail trim and either a bath or a deep comb out) $55-80
• Quickie (just nails) $35 +$15 each additional

Contact Info:

• Email: Carolyn.Black@gmail.com
• Website: https://carolynsmobilecatgrooming.com/pricing/
• Instagram: @carolynscatgrooming
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carolynscatgrooming
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCalZRqcb0M6vFwXcTepFZSg
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/carolyns-mobile-cat-grooming-new-braunfels