Harrisonburg Aquatics & Live Fish at Petco

This review is about the grooming salon, and my experience with Brooke. — After many bad experiences in a row followed by a blow-up from Brooke today, despite having gone to Petco for grooming for 2.5 years, I’m unfortunately going to have to stop going to Petco for grooming services. For months, Brooke has been making snide remarks about my dog during nail trimmings. “You’re being so bad.” “What is wrong with you today?” “You’re being totally crazy,” she says to Hana all throughout the groom. Mind you, Hana is actually not THAT bad for having her nails trimmed. She cries during the whole groom. (But she never barks or growls.) She sometimes pulls her feet away. (But never bites.) She sometimes thrashes for a few seconds. (But always calms down after a few seconds.) That’s something that makes it difficult for me to do nails at home, but should be pretty far for the course for a grooming salon. If she was a perfect angel with nails, I wouldn’t be there in the first place. I’d be doing them at home. Additionally, a large part of the reason why my dog is so anxious for nail trims is because of Petco’s own policy that she isn’t allowed to take her anxiety medication within 24 hours of the groom. She takes this medication daily. Her normal brain chemistry is off. She’d probably be anxious even if we were just sitting at home. I understand it’s a policy and Brooke can’t change that. But it’s frustrating for her to make snide comments at my dog when we are both just doing our best under their policy. After my last groom, I had finally had enough of Brooke’s remarks. After each groom, Petco sends a “please rate the quality of your service today” email. It’s private, and doesn’t appear publicly. I wrote a polite but honest review of my experiences with Brooke. After that, I honestly kind of forgot about it. Today, I had a lot of grooming related questions for her. I wanted to ask about Hana’s coat, concerns I had with it, ask about product recommendations. I was ready to move on and wanted her expertise. But I didn’t have any chance for that. As soon as I walked in and said hello, Brooke, in an uncharacteristically harsh tone immediately says “So what was wrong with last time?” I was super taken off guard. I wasn’t expecting a direct confrontation and especially not in this tone. I respond “Well, I uhm… every time we come, you make so many comments about how bad Hana is. We are just doing out best and it sucks to hear you say that every single time.” Obviously I have a lot more reasons but I was so shocked I couldn’t articulate everything immediately. Brooke’s demeanor becomes even more tense, and she says, “Okay, well, it’s my job as a groomer to let you know how your dog is behaving during grooms.” There’s SO much wrong with this. (1) I’m standing right there the entire time, I can see how Hana is doing during her grooms. (2) Brooke isn’t making these comments to me, she’s looking at my dog and saying them to my dog. (3) If she was genuinely trying to ‘let me know’ how my dog is doing, she should come up to me and speak with me directly. And it should be “she’s being so bad / what’s wrong with her / she’s being crazy”. It should be polite and professional like “Hey, I noticed that your dog is anxious during grooms. Have you considered speaking to a trainer about this?” or “Your dog seems very sensitive about having her feet touched. I recommend you watch some videos about desensitizing your dog to feet touching for grooming.”

I wanted to tell her that, but Brooke was being so tense and defensive. She doesn’t seem open to having a conversation with me at all. She has at no point apologized for anything. She was only seemed interested in defending herself instead of rectifying the situation. I said in a very sheepish voice, “I mean… it seems like you’re just interested in telling me why I’m wrong, and I really don’t want to argue about it. So let’s just leave it there.” (I admit that wording was a little rude. I think I wanted to say “You don’t seem interested in having an open discussion” but again I was so shocked I couldn’t find the right words.)

She says, “I don’t want to argue either. If you don’t want me to groom her anymore I can cancel the appointment.” When I tell her I want to move forward with today she says “Do you want me to cancel her future appointments?” To me this is sending the message that she’s not willing to work with me to find common ground, to rectify the situation. She seems like she doesn’t want to work with me if I’m not happy with her demeanor exactly as it is. She’s happy to throw away a 2.5 year client just over a mid-grade internal review I left. We went through with the service for the day and I told her I’d call later about if I wanted to discontinue services. I went and picked up a pair of dog clippers in the store and went to check out. (At Petco you pay for grooming at the register, not in the salon.) The cashier asks if I want to live a tip for Brooke. Every single other time for the last 2.5 years I have left her a tip, even last time when I was upset about it, but this time I couldn’t justify it. I left without tipping and having bought a pair of nail clippers. That’s a pretty good indication of how I felt.

I really don’t feel welcome at that salon anymore. If writing an honest internal non-public review causes my groomer to lash out at me, I don’t really feel comfortable entrusting my dog with that person. In my opinion, she should have been way more polite, like, “Hello, how are you today? I noticed that on your online feedback form, you indicated that you weren’t totally happy with your service. I’m really sorry about that. Could we talk about what happened so I can better understand the situation and make it right moving forward?” not simply “What was wrong with last time?” with a stern face. 

Even if she felt she did nothing wrong, if she started like that and was actually open to a dialogue, I could have explained about wishing she had said these things to my face and recommended practical solutions instead of just making snide remarks at my dog. She went about it all wrong and I can’t go back there now for grooming. I can’t speak to the other groomers at the salon, but at this time I’m unable to recommend Brooke as a groomer to anyone.

The place to go to get all your pet needs and save!

Staff was exceptionally helpful and knowledgeable. The store was well organized and clean. Checkout was fast with no wait. Best experience I’ve had!

The staff here clearly care about their animals. If you ask any of the employees about an animal, they are either very knowledgeable about them, or will bring over someone who is. Brought my kids in there the other day and Leah helped us with the fish. Not only did she help us with getting what all we needed to set up the tank, she made it a fun experience for my kids. Highly recommend this store.

I will recommend this pet store. The staff is friendly and they answered all my questions .

My husband booked a grooming appointment roughly 3 weeks ago. They discussed prices and concerns and that was it. When we came in today, Brooke was clearly annoyed to be at work. Once we started checking in, she asked about medications and we shared that our dog is on trazadone daily. She said that she'd never be able to groom our dogs because petco policy says they can't be on sedatives. Why weren't we informed of this when booking the appointment? What a waste of our time.

Brooke, answered the phone as I wanted to book an appointment. I asked if they had any available appointments that same day. Very Terrell she said " no we do not" I said said thank you. She said "yep" and hung up. I didn't even make it to get my dog groomed. You can bet I will never get my dog groomed there. The first point of contact is representing the business.

Went there 6 times and they closed early finally get there 25 min before they closed and they would not sell me a goldfish I drive an hour to get there.. will never shop there again I see them closing..