FAQ's

When you book your pet in with us we will agree an arrival time with you.  Please try to arrive on time.  We know from time to time that emergencies do happen, and we will be as flexible as we can with you, but please let us know ASAP.

Note: if you are late for your appointment you may have to re-book or pay a late fee of £5 per 15 minutes.

When you arrive, we will let you know a time to collect.  Please remember at Pristine Pups we do not rush any dog through the grooming process, so we do ask that you allow for a 3-4 hour stay with us.  If we can have them ready for collection any earlier than this time, we will of course call you to advise.

Note:  If you are late collecting your dog we may charge £5 for the first 15 minutes and £5 for every 15 minutes or part of thereafter.

We have ample parking.  You can usually park out front on King Street, but if this area is full please drive around the back of the shop where more parking facilities can be found.

Unfortunately, because we have a mixture of male and female dogs in the salon at any time we are unable to accept any bitch who is in season.

If your dog has been unwell in the last 24 hrs, we would ask that you do not bring them in as we have other dogs in with us and we would not want to spread any illness to them.  

Please help us by giving us as much notice as possible and we will rearrange your appointment for another day. 

The price for grooming varies dependant on the breed size and of course on the condition of the dog’s coat.  Therefore, we cannot give an accurate quotation without first seeing your dog.

On our services page we have indicated a from price that you can expect to pay as a minimum dependant on the size of the dog.

Examples of a small dog would be Yorkshire Terrier, Shih tzu, Dachshund, West Highland White Terrier, Chihuaha

Examples of a medium dog Cocker Spaniel, Labrador, Springer Spaniel, Cockerpoo

Examples of a large dog:  Labradoodle, German Shepherd, Standard poodle, Giant Schnauzer

If you miss your appointment or fail to give  1 full working days notice of not being able to attend, then we will levy an additional 50% groom charge next time you book in.

We accept all major credit/debit cards (except American Express)

You can also pay using contactless or Apple pay

We do not offer this service at this time

We can arrange local collection and delivery on certain days.  A small additional charge is levied for this service based on mileage.  For example, £5 each way for a Burghfield Mortimer collection.  Tadley and South Reading £10 each way

At Pristine Pups we do not rush any pet through the grooming process.  This is to minimise any undue stress to your dog by giving them ample opportunity to relax and play with the other dogs we have in.  So please allow for 3-4 hours for each appointment (dependant on the breed of the dog)

We find that when owners remain in the shop, even when they are out of sight (they can still smell and hear them) their dog is far more excitable and can move around a lot more when being groomed which can seriously increase the risk of an accident.  So, we ask that you leave your pet with us. Please be assured that we will look after your pet as if it was our own and make sure they are safe and happy.

We do everything we can to ensure that you will be happy with the finished result of our groom.  However, in the unlikely event that you are unhappy with any aspect, please let us know immediately and we will do our utmost to resolve the issue for you. 

No we do not use, like or own any of these pieces of equipment.  All our drying is carried out by hand so we can have 1 on 1 contact with every dog.  When we are not actively washing, drying or grooming your pet they will be allowed to have a free run of the salon along with their other doggy mates.

When grooming dogs there is always a possibility that and accident could occur. Although we take extreme caution when grooming the dogs, our grooming equipment are sharp and any sudden movement or jump could lead to a little nick, scratch, cut, over cutting of the nail etc. In the event of an accident happening and needing veterinary advice, we will take your dog to the vet. 

If you arrive early to pick up your pup please be as quiet as you can so that your dog doesn't hear you or see you, if your dog knows your there this could make them very excited and make it very dangerous when trying to finish the groom.

If your dog has shown any signs of aggression towards you or anyone else, has previously bitten anyone, doesn't get on with other dogs, or doesn't like certain parts of being groomed, then you must let us know so that we are take extra caution when grooming. 

For our safety, we do have muzzles that may be used if your dog is showing any signs of aggression towards us whilst being groomed. We also have the right the refuse any dog if we feel that it is too dangerous for us, other dogs or your pet to be groomed.

Do you offer grooming to banned breeds such as XL Bullies?

The government has introduced some very strict guidelines for banned breeds, and as such our insurers have also placed limitations on what breeds we can accept. Any XL Bully type breeds must be registered on the index of exempted dogs and have a life certificate & public liability insurance (we would need a copy of each certificate). They must be microchipped, neutered, kept muzzled and on a lead at all times in a secure place so they cannot escape.  Although we can work with these restrictions, the one we can’t do is to have a 1 to 1 dog handler ratio at all times as we almost always have many dogs in with us at any given time.  So it is with heavy heart we say that we cannot groom dogs of this type. We can however make arrangements to trim nails at the end of some days when no other dog is present.

Although we try and make our grooming sessions as stress free as possible, some older dogs or puppies may still find it a little stressful at times which could expose hidden medical injuries or aggravate a current injury. We will do the best we can with them, but because these dogs are more likely to cause an accident our main priority would be to make sure their coat is clean and they are kept comfortable.

If you know your dog has fleas then please don't bring them in for a groom as we like to keep the risk of them spreading to our other customers to an absolute minimum. However, if we find fleas on your dog whilst being groomed, we will wash them in our medicated anti flea shampoo and isolate them from all other dogs. This could also result in an additional charge of £20 as we will need to disinfect the salon to ensure that any fleas are eradicated. 

Where we find Ticks on the skin, we will remove the tick using our tick twisting tool.  This ensures that the complete tick is removed without the risk of leaving the head behind.  We will also apply an antiseptic treatment to the area where the tick latched on.

We will also not accept any responsibility if any unvaccinated dogs become ill after spending time with us.

We may take photos of your dog during the grooming process to use in advertising, our website or on social media pages. If you do not wish for us to take pictures of your dog for these reason’s, please ensure you tick the box on the bottom of the form that we get you to fill in when initially dropping your dog off to us.

Dogs that have matted coats need a lot of extra care and attention. If matts are left in the dogs coat they will only get tighter, can strangle the dogs skin and in extreme cases they can cut off the blood supply. When your dog is with us, it is our main priority to make sure that the dog leaves us comfy. Sometimes it is hard to tell how matted the dog is until they are in the bath or when they are being brushed out and the dryer is blowing on their coat. If your dog is extremely matted when coming to us, the safest and kindest way to solve this is to take the coat short and start again, sometimes this could mean taking them shorter than you would like them to be. 

When removing heavy matts, there is a risk of small nicks, cuts or even small irritations such as clipper rash. There is also risks of warts, moles or skin folds being hidden by the matts which would make them more likely to get caught in the clippers when removing the matted hair. The after effects of removing heavy matts could be skin irritation, itchiness or redness. 

To prevent your dog from becoming matted, the best thing to do would be too arrange a freshen up appointment in between grooms, this way we can brush out the little knots before they create matts.  This makes it much easier to manage the coat and enable you to home groom in between appointments which you should be doing on a regular basis. 

There is an additional charge for matted dogs as this takes us extra time and causes extra wear and tear on our equipment.  Pristine Pups will not be held responsible for any after effects if your dog has had to be clipped short due to an unkept coat.