True Vibes Unleashed

As soon as Deja Pearson began working with dogs, she knew she wanted to start her own business. When she became a groomer, she became interested in the industry: “I noticed that the environment was mostly stressful for dogs and groomers alike and I wanted to change that.”

True Vibes Unleashed, located at 3702 Lee Road, is a peaceful and professional cage-free dog grooming salon that caters to a dog’s entire grooming experience. This means that groomers cater to how dogs feel when they’re here, in addition to giving them high-quality haircuts.

Even before Deja lived in Shaker, she always wanted to live here and knew she wanted to own a business here. “I always saw people walking their dogs. The houses looked beautiful, and the grounds looked beautiful. I knew I wanted to serve the people here.” Deja moved to Shaker in 2017 and opened True Vibes in 2020.

During the pandemic, Deja decided to teach yoga to fellow groomers she knew from working for a company to assist in de-stressing. She began teaching yoga through Instagram and eventually grew quite a following. Groomer 2 Groomer magazine and Ryan’s Pet Supplies featured her story of teaching yoga. At the same time, Deja began working with Cleveland State University’s Small Business Development Center. In January of 2020, she registered True Vibes Unleashed. The COVID-19 quarantine gave her time to work on a business plan and, eventually, to be made aware of an open business space in Shaker.

Now, four years later, Deja Pearson is a Shaker Heights business owner and resident. She has hired an additional groomer and just wrapped up a weekend of teaching a class for kids on how to approach dogs in public.

The rewards of owning a small business allows for this kind of creativity as well as other rewards, too: “I love the freedom of my time. I have a young son and before I had kids, I knew I wanted a small business so I could have time for my family. I can bring my son here and I don’t have to ask anyone. Flexibility is huge.”

Deja mentions that this same flexibility can come with a price, however. When in-between employees, she would have to pick up the slack, or, on the reverse side, make sure there was enough work to be able to hire a full-time person, or determine if it should be a part-time role. These are challenges several small businesses know all too well.

Challenges are part of the ups and downs of owning a small business. Deja advises those wanting to start their own small business to make sure that they love what they do: “loving the work will help you stick through the hard times and will help you pivot to learn something new.”

Dog grooming salons are an underserved market. According to a Washington Post article, more than 23 million American households adopted a pet during the pandemic. One could imagine, then, the increase in demand for dog grooming.

Grooming salons tend to pack in as many dogs as they can in a day, which in turn forces the groomers to perform their cuts fast. “Dogs are living beings and they amp up from being sped up on. Then dogs go to a cage and they get upset from hearing other dogs bark. Then the groomer gets stressed out,” explains Deja. Dogs can also soil themselves in their cages as they wait, and then the groomer needs to clean them up, and so goes the cycle. Groomers become overworked, tired, and suffer from compassion fatigue.

True Vibes Unleashed remedies these typical dog grooming salon issues by slowing down and only taking in a few dogs a day. True Vibes’ prices are not necessarily the standard of the average grooming salon, but this is on purpose: “we want to give your dog the best experience and we want to take less dogs per day. We are taking new clients who own dogs looking for an experience like that.”

True Vibes is open Monday through Thursday and Saturday. Appointments can be booked through truevibesunleashed.com.