It all started with Mountain Dog Spa in Cashiers, NC.
Serving the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau and Surrounding Areas Since 2008, Mountain Dog Spa is a dog destination where dogs can play and enjoy a spa day.
Alissa Short, the business owner, originally opened up a grooming shop. After graduating from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC, Alissa studied at the prestigious Nanhall School of Grooming in Greensboro, NC. When she returned to the mountains, Alissa’s grooming skills became locally renowned. Alissa’s Mountain Dog Spa premises officially opened in downtown Cashiers in 2008, but many of her lifelong clients had already been on Alissa’s dog grooming schedule for a number of years.
Through the years, Mountain Dog Spa grew to suit the needs of the community by adding daycare and overnight boarding to its list of offerings. The business’s first big move was to a custom location, built across the street from Ingles in Cashiers, to accommodate interactive group play and cozy overnight stays while still providing top quality dog grooming.
In due time, Mountain Dog Spa continued to grow to meet the needs of the community’s families by providing an innovative dog training system designed by Alissa Short in response to the specific struggles her clients were experiencing the most. Alissa recognized the need for methods that would really work to provide safety to her clients as they enjoy lifelong relationships built on healthy boundaries and clear communication with their dogs. In an ongoing effort to bring Mountain Dog Spa’s dog training revelations to more people far and wide, Alissa began a podcast called the Cashiers Canine Connection with Mountain Dog Spa’s Media Coordinator, Dona Ampova, in 2020, as well as a variety of social media platforms.
The Future of Mountain Dog Spa, Mountain Dog Academy and Mountain Dog Resort
As the community continues to attract more and more dog lovers to Highlands, Cashiers, Sapphire and the surrounding mountain towns, the word is spreading that Mountain Dog Spa is the #1 Dog Destination in WNC! Pet parents love and trust the care their pets enjoy at Mountain Dog, as well as the relationships they build with their pets’ caregivers through the years. So blessed with a wonderful community of pets and families, Mountain Dog Spa wishes to welcome even more pets into the Mountain Dog pack! The inspiration behind the expansion to a second location is to maximize the services that the canine citizens of Cashiers can receive.
The organization of the services will be that the future location, Mountain Dog Resort, will host the luxury daycare and overnight boarding experience as a hotel and play resort designed with everything custom and state-of-the-art for the best doggy vacation the mountains of WNC have to offer. Meanwhile the current location, Mountain Dog Spa, will continue offering full-service spa days for dogs, complete with everything from dog baths and manicures to haircuts. Also, the dog training program offered at Mountain Dog Spa will continue to be offered as the building gets a makeover to become a school for dogs, and the sign out front will say, “Mountain Dog Academy” – these exciting changes are coming soon!
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