Salon on Wheels

It was bath time, but a cautious golden retriver named Luke stood defiantly on the sidewalk, refusing to go into the motor home awaiting him.

After a few moments of coaxing by groomer Lynn Chadney, Luke finally climbed into the behicle for his usual beauty appointment.

“You get different reactions,” Chadney, 35, said about the canines she tends to. “Some of them run inside. Others you have to pull out from under the bed.”

Chadney is the owner The Ruff Trade, a mobile grooming business for pets. For the last five years, she has cruised the streets of the Santa Clarita Valley and neighboring comunities in a customized vehicle that includes a bathtub, blow dryer, vacuum and products such as shampoos and flea-killing medications.

Her clientele has grown into the hundreds, she said.

“The dog owners are nice,” she said. “Some of them even invite me over for lunch.”

Chadney, who grew up around dogs, said she knew one day she would work with the animals. She learned how to care for them as a student at the Colorado School for Grooming Dog Training. Later she worked for various groomers until moving to the Santa Clarita Valley and going solo.

“Dogs are like kids,” Chadney said. “They are your best friends.”

For an appointment, she parks on the sidewalk or a client’s driveway, retrieves the dog and then gives him or her a bath. then the coat is trimmed and fingernails clipped.

The cost-$40.