Jess Rona‘s unlikely profession in canine grooming started thanks to at least one very specific household cat. As a teen rising up within the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, Rona and her mother would drive to a PetSmart 20 minutes from their residence “to get this particular cat meals,” she remembers. There, they noticed a assist needed signal, and Rona, who was on the lookout for a brand new part-time job, was employed as a canine bather.
When you thought this was the a part of the story the place Rona fell in love with the craft and instantly ascended to her throne because the Jen Atkin of the canine world, you would be unsuitable. Rona says she “discovered slowly,” due largely to the truth that her sights had been set on performing, not grooming. “I went to performing faculty and groomed canines. I waited tables and groomed canines. So grooming was at all times a factor I used to be mediocre at. I might simply do it to offer me supplemental earnings.”
Rona finally moved to New York Metropolis, the place she did improv each night time on the famed Upright Residents Brigade (UCB) comedy faculty. However going through burnout, and together with her thirtieth birthday on the horizon, she determined to switch to UCB Los Angeles and double down on grooming. Says Rona, “I began to essentially attempt to get good.”
She voraciously studied breed-standard haircuts and located mentors by means of the grooming competitors neighborhood. “I received sweaty and freaked out once I met Jay Scruggs, as a result of he can hand-scissor a poodle,” says Rona. (Most groomers would use clippers.) “He was so gracious. He allowed me to ship him footage of my work and he would critique it.”
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