How to choose a dog groomer in Plymouth
Dog grooming is unregulated in the UK, so the checking is on you. This directory covers 36 groomers across Plymouth city centre and Stonehouse, Mutley and Peverell, Plympton, Plymstock, Crownhill and Derriford, St Budeaux and Saltash, Ivybridge and Tavistock. Read this before you pick one.
Plymouth centre and Stonehouse has just one confirmed groomer
Searches for a dog groomer inside the PL1 postcode itself turned up only one confirmed business: Little Pet Supplies & Grooming Ltd, a pet shop and grooming salon on Marlborough Street in Keyham. Everything else found for the city centre or Stonehouse either turned out to be a national chain, sat just outside PL1 in a neighbouring postcode, or couldn't be confirmed at all. If you're in the city centre or Stonehouse, the nearest wider choice is a short trip into Mutley and Peverell (PL3, PL4), which has four confirmed groomers listed here.
Check how well the business is documented
Of the 36 businesses in this directory, eight were confirmed from a first-hand working website plus at least one other source (marked high confidence). Twenty-seven are medium confidence, usually meaning the details come from a directory listing, Facebook page or a single secondary source rather than the business's own working site. One, K&C Grooming in Ivybridge, is low confidence: it moved out of its former premises in March 2022 and no current street address has been found since, only a phone number, and its listing here says so plainly.
One address, three names — and other merges
95 Church Road in Plymstock is one long-standing grooming business trading for over twenty years, but it appears under three different names across different sources: Plymstock Dog Groomers (its own Google-listed site), K9 Klips (on a directory page) and Katori Grooming Salon Plymstock (Katori's own contact page, which lists it as a second location). It's listed here once, as Plymstock Dog Groomers, not three times — if you see any of the other two names for this Church Road address, it's the same salon. A separate, unrelated business also called K9 Klips trades from Hyde Park Road in Mutley; the two are distinct, with different addresses and phone numbers, so double-check you have the right one when you call. Similarly, Estover Dog Groomers is also listed as Barking Barbers at the identical Phoenix Mill Business Park address, and Barks and Bubbles Dog Grooming near Ugborough is also listed as Happy Barks and Bubbles Grooming Salon at the same address and phone number — both are one business each, not two.
Who was left out, and why
Six leads with an address but no confirmed phone number anywhere checked were left out under this directory's rule of publishing only businesses with a confirmed phone: Top Dog (Mutley, a one-to-one salon that only takes contact by SMS or WhatsApp), Ladies & Tramps (Mutley), Rufus + Friends Dog Grooming Services (a mobile round based in Plymstock), Well Groomed (Crownhill), Squirrel Tails Dog Grooming (St Dominick, near Saltash) and Animal Magic Grooming (a mobile service near Tavistock). A Pets at Home Groom Room at Friary Retail Park was seen and excluded as a national chain. A number of otherwise well-documented businesses were excluded purely on postcode, including one in Peverell that sits in PL2, just outside the PL3-PL4 range this directory covers for Mutley and Peverell, and several groomers in villages beyond the eight areas listed here, such as Callington, Launceston and South Brent.
Qualifications
City & Guilds training comes up often among Plymouth's groomers: All Wrinkled Out, Adorable Pets Dog Grooming (Level 3), Woodford Wags (Kim Chanter, Level 3), The Dog Dip (a Level 2 and 3 qualified groomer), Charlene's Dog Grooming, Scooby Dees Dog Grooming (Dionne, Level 3), K&C Grooming (Kelly and Clare, Level 2 and 3) and West Devon Dog Grooming (Zosia Cole) all cite it. Ask for the qualification by name if it matters to you, since plenty of other listings here don't mention one either way.
One-to-one and home-based setups
A few businesses describe working with one dog at a time or from a smaller, non-salon setting: Adorable Pets Dog Grooming (one-to-one, no cages), The Grooming Centre (one-to-one, no cages or cabinet dryers), Woodford Wags (home-based), V.I.P. Dog Grooming Service (a converted garage unit) and West Devon Dog Grooming (working from inside a veterinary practice, which may suit a nervous dog or one with a health condition worth having support nearby for). If a calm, single-appointment setting matters for your dog, ask about these directly.
Mobile groomers
Only one of the 36 businesses listed here works from a van rather than a fixed salon: Dashing Hounds Dog Grooming, based in Ivybridge. Two other mobile services turned up in research, Rufus + Friends Dog Grooming Services and Animal Magic Grooming, but neither had a confirmed phone number, so neither is listed. If you need someone to come to you, it's worth asking a salon-based groomer whether they also travel, since almost everyone here works from fixed premises.
Cats and other animals
Soapy Dog grooms cats as well as dogs, as does Harlequins, the business sharing Scooby Dees Dog Grooming's Elburton premises. Plymouth Tails Grooming Studio grooms guinea pigs alongside dogs. Little Pet Supplies & Grooming Ltd offers microchipping for dogs, cats, puppies, kittens and ferrets alongside its grooming range. Everyone else in this directory is confirmed for dog grooming only.
Reviews
No business in this directory currently shows a star rating. Several directory aggregator pages describe high ratings for individual businesses, Pawfection Pet Grooming among them, but none of those ratings came from a Google Maps, Trustpilot, Fresha, Booksy or Yelp page that was directly checked and can be linked to, so none is recorded here. A later ratings pass can check each business's own profile on those platforms directly.
Where they are
Coverage is heaviest in Plympton (nine confirmed groomers), followed by St Budeaux and Saltash (seven), Ivybridge (six), Mutley and Peverell (four), Plymstock, Crownhill and Derriford, and Tavistock (three each), with Plymouth city centre and Stonehouse the thinnest by far at just one. If you're in the city centre, Stonehouse, or another thinly covered area, the nearest well-documented option in a neighbouring area, or a mobile groomer if one covers your postcode, is worth trying first.