Leeth owns Pawsh Dog House, a business that grooms and boards dogs. In just 12 years, Leeth has opened a total of four Pawsh locations in the Bay Area, and she said she is planning to expand.
Leeth opened her first location near Calder Road in 2009. Leeth had been working as a groomer for years and decided to take the plunge with her own business. Leeth paints and creates other art, sometimes even using her dog, Glitter, as a living canvas.
“It’s fun to be creative,” Leeth said. “I’ve always had a love for dogs, so to tie those in together [is great]”
Leeth quickly opened a Clear Lake location and took over another pet-grooming business and made it her own in 2012. In 2017, she opened her fourth spot in Friendswood, she said.
Leeth’s vision is for Pawsh to be like a neighborhood Starbucks or McDonald’s: They are found all over and serve the areas in which they reside.
One of the challenges of the business is trying to run four separate locations while still making time to groom. Leeth has a general manager and investors ready to help her business grow, and it is people like that whom Leeth depends on for success, she said.
“You definitely can’t have four locations with one person,” she said. “You have to trust a lot of people.”
An advantage of Leeth’s business compared to other pet-boarding places, she said, is that Pawsh keeps itself small. That allows the business to give dogs hours of playtime daily rather than the 15 or 30 minutes bigger facilities allow, Leeth said.
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Leeth’s customer focus has paid off: Some dogs have been boarding at Pawsh since she first opened her doors over a decade ago, she said.
“We try to care about people here,” she said.
