Pampered Pets

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     Owner Desalene Jones insists that her charges be pack friendly and current on immunizations. To handle disputes, she employs Leah Ruiz, a dog behaviorist who also offers private training classes for $50 an hour.            

     Other employees are licensed in pet care and Red Cross pet first-aid. Cha Cha’s also produces $40 slumber parties, and for $700 your round hound can get an extreme makeover, which entails a 30-day weight-loss and training camp.

The Paws That Refresh

Next door to Cha Cha’s is KJ Paws, another pet-focused business that has tidied up a few of Cha Cha’s fur kids after a paw-painting session. “We have clients from all over Sacramento,” says Kim Christoffersen, who also owns traveldog.com, an Internet resource for traveling with your dog. “We even have one man who comes from Sea Ranch (Sonoma County coast) every month.”            

     Clip costs vary by dog breed, but range from $20 to $100; baths are $20 to $60 for very large breeds. KJ Paws grooms rescued dogs at a discount to help their chances for adoption.            

     Christoffersen says KJ Paws is one of the few local pet salons that will bathe cats, $30 to $50, depending on the cat’s temperament, fur length and health. Some cats require special handling. (Ever try to bathe one?)            

     And ever wondered what your pet’s thinking? If so, you may want to call Mary Argo, “animal communicator,” a word she prefers to “psychic,” which has a negative connotation to some and implies she makes predictions (she doesn’t).   

Sit! Stay! Heal!

Meanwhile, the new $16 million state-of-the-art Center for Companion Animal Health (CCAH) at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis (UCD) (www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/ccah) treats as many as 3,600 animals a year, everything from exotic birds to elephants. The school’s specialty is cancer, which “kills about the same proportion of animals as it does people,” says Professor Niels Pedersen, director.            

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