41 Wrenfield Row · Est. MMXVI
Six rooms, one table, and nothing done in a hurry.
A grooming atelier, a six-suite boarding house and a leather bench, all on one floor of one building. Twelve dogs a day. Dried by hand, every one.
Appointments only. Closed Mondays for sharpening.
- 12dogs a day, maximum
- 6boarding suites, never seven
- 31pairs of shears on a rota
- 0cage dryers in the building
What we do
Grooming, by appointment
Twelve dogs a day, one on the floor at a time. No walk-ins, no holding pens, no waiting in a crate for a slot.
Hand-stripping, rolled
Wire coats pulled by hand on a six-to-eight week calendar, so the jacket keeps its colour instead of going soft under a clipper.
Six boarding suites
Private rooms over the atelier, one household each, four individual walks a day and an evening with a person in an armchair.
The bench
Bridle leather collars and waxed winter coats, cut to your own dog's measurements and repaired here for as long as we are open.
Warm towels.
Cold arithmetic.
- From the bench
- Bridle collar, 25mmFrom $1453 weeks
- Rolled lead, 1.4m$120To match
- Waxed winter coatFrom $2604 weeks
- Wool travel blanket$88On the shelf
Everything cut at the bench is repaired here, free, for as long as we are open.
How the bench works ↗
The rules
Six things we will not do, whoever asks.
Most of what makes this house what it is, is a list of refusals. They cost us money every week and none of them is negotiable.
- 01
No cage dryers. Not one, not ever.
Every dog here is dried by hand with a stand dryer and a comb, by a person standing next to it. It halves what this building could earn and it is the rule we would close over.
- 02
No walk-ins for grooming.
Appointments are made seven days out and held with a $40 deposit. The exception is nails: $24, between two and four, no appointment, any day we are open.
- 03
One dog on the floor at a time.
Nobody waits their turn in a crate. Your dog arrives, is worked on, and goes home — it is never stacked behind three other appointments.
- 04
No sedation, no muzzle for our convenience.
A dog that cannot be finished calmly goes home part-done, with a plan and half the fee refunded, and we try again in a fortnight.
- 05
No dye, no glitter, no shaved double coats.
A stripped-out husky is a sunburnt husky. We will explain it once, politely, and then decline the booking.
- 06
Vaccination records before arrival.
No grace period, no 'it's at the vet's'. Six boarding rooms means we can afford to say no, and we do.
The offering
Start with one of these three.
- Grooming
The Full Groom
Bath, hand-dry, and a scissor or clipper finish cut to the coat in front of us — not to a breed diagram. Four hours at the outside, one dog on the floor.
From $128 - Grooming
Hand-Stripping
Dead coat pulled out by finger and thumb, on a rolling calendar, so a wire jacket keeps its colour and its crispness instead of going soft and grey under a clipper.
From $190 - Boarding
The Six Suites
Six rooms upstairs, one household to a room, no shared runs and no kennel block. A settling day before the first night, because nobody's first night here should also be their first visit.
$96 a night
4.9 — 212 households
What the Row says, when we are not listening.
“They sent Mabel home half-done with forty pounds back and a note explaining why. Every other place would have got it finished somehow. We have been going for four years.”
Annie R.Mabel, wire dachshund
“Nine nights in June. We got a written note every evening — what she ate, who she met on the Row, whether she settled. No photographs, which I initially thought was odd and now prefer.”
Tomas L.Juno, greyhound
“The collar has been on him since 2021, in the sea most weekends. It has gone the colour of a cricket ball and they restitched the keeper for nothing last March.”
Priya D.Bo, labrador
“I was told my terrier's coat was three years past saving and that clipping him well was the honest answer. Nobody had ever declined to sell me something before.”
Gordon M.Wick, Border terrier
The journal
Written on Mondays, when the door is shut.
We will never own a cage dryer
It would let us take thirty dogs a day instead of twelve. That is the entire argument for one, and it is not enough.
Read the noteA rolled coat is a calendar, not a haircut
Why we ask terrier people to commit to eight weeks forever, and what happens to the colour when they don't.
Read the note
Bring us the coat that has beaten you.
Tell us the breed, the coat and the last time somebody got a comb through it. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right building for it.