hen Brooke Gabbert opened ABQ Cat Grooming in July 2021, the salon was not quite ready—but the cats certainly were.

Calls began coming in while she was still preparing the space, but rather than make those pet owners wait, she started grooming with one table in an empty room. And many of those first clients remain with her today.

That hurried opening confirmed what Brooke had begun to suspect: Albuquerque needed a salon devoted entirely to cats. However, creating New Mexico’s first feline-exclusive grooming salon would require more than specialized equipment and a “Cats Only” sign.

Brooke also had to introduce many local pet owners to the idea that cats need professional grooming and establish the trust and boundaries necessary to do that work safely.

“When you bring cat grooming into a city, you are creating a new customer culture,” explains Brooke. “People are used to holding their cat and calling the shots. I had to get them to understand that I needed them to let go so the cat could see that I had control.”

She had spent much of her life preparing for this challenging work, though. Brooke’s best friend’s mother operated a home-based grooming business, and she began helping there at just 12 years old. So, she became comfortable in a grooming shop long before choosing it as a career.

When she turned 19, Brooke put herself through grooming school. She groomed dogs for years, and at one point operated a small business out of her grandmother’s garage. Like many dog groomers, Brooke also accepted an occasional cat and believed that made her a cat groomer. However, experience eventually showed her the distinction.

“I was one of those dog groomers who did one or two cats a month and called myself a cat groomer,” admits Brooke. “Then I started talking to actual cat groomers and realized, ‘Oh, we are not the same.’”

Although she completed the grooms, Brooke began to see how much more she needed to learn about feline behavior, efficient handling and coat care. That realization led her to pursue a Certified Feline Master Groomer designation through the National Cat Groomers Institute.

“I’m glad I did a few years of training and got my CFMG before I opened,” she shares. “The first two years of a business are hard, and a lot of people are not ready for that.”

The education also revealed a talent she had not known she possessed. Brooke, who once considered herself more of a dog person, discovered that she read cats well and could work without unnecessarily escalating their stress.

“I didn’t know I would be so good at it,” she exclaims. “They liked me. I didn’t upset them. Working with them is what made me love cats.”

Cats shape nearly every aspect of ABQ Cat Grooming, from the salon layout to its service standards. Their philosophy begins with correcting a persistent misconception: Cats may lick themselves, but licking is not grooming. A cat’s tongue cannot remove every mat, degrease an oily coat, trim an ingrown nail, or address many skin and coat concerns.

Every cat at ABQ is bathed and fully dried. Depending on the animal’s needs, services can include nail care, de-shedding, mat and tangle removal, sanitary trim or a full haircut. The salon is especially known for comb cuts—also called plush or teddy-bear cuts—as well as rounded faces and their work with Persians.

“We expect ourselves to do 100 percent of the job, just like any other grooming shop,” Brooke explains. “We do everything a dog shop does; we just do it with cats.”

That commitment includes working with cats that do not immediately cooperate. Instead of rejecting a cat simply because it is difficult, Brooke looks for a safe path forward. That may mean changing the handling strategy, conditioning the cat over repeated visits or, when necessary, recommending veterinary assistance.

“When a cat is difficult, I think, ‘This cat needs me,’” she shares. “It needs me, or it may need a vet. We try to help them, and eventually they do better.”

Brooke’s handling relies on observation and constant repositioning, which can interrupt a building reaction before it becomes a larger struggle. The salon is arranged so a cat that slips free cannot travel far. If one becomes highly agitated, she would rather release it briefly and retrieve it calmly with a towel than risk injury by fighting to maintain a hold.

“With cats, it is repositioning, repositioning, repositioning,” Brooke explains. “They have to rethink what they are going to do next. Most of them will stay there, and the regular ones know: ‘OK, it is grooming time.’ They might growl because they are cats and that is how they react, but they stay and do their groom.”

Regular appointments make a noticeable difference. That is why educating owners about maintenance is not only a coat-care issue; it protects the cat and the groomer. For Brooke, establishing those expectations took resolve.

Early on, some owners wanted to remain in the grooming area, grab their cats or dictate which safety steps Brooke could perform. She learned that accepting every demand could undermine the very experience clients were paying her to provide.

“I had to stand by my decisions,” she says. “I have sent people away when they did not trust me. If you don’t trust me, don’t come see me.”

Brooke also learned to distinguish between clients seeking an ongoing professional relationship and those treating a long-neglected groom as a next-day emergency. The latter appointments can be physically taxing and difficult to work into a full schedule of established cats. So, she began prioritizing patient owners willing to follow a routine, and those clients became the foundation of ABQ.

Brooke describes the overall look of the salon as “plain Jane”—mostly white and metal—but its simplicity is deliberate. The space is easy to clean, easy to monitor and efficient for a team moving cats through bathing, drying and finishing.

ABQ Cat Grooming began as a one-woman operation, but Brooke now has two assistants who have worked alongside her for approximately three years and are beginning to groom. Building the team slowly allowed her to master her systems, then teach people to read cats and support the process without adding stress.

With one assistant helping with drying and finishing, the salon can groom about 10 cats in a day. Still, volume is not Brooke’s only measure of a healthy business. ABQ is open four days a week, and she intentionally works part time.

“I am always trying to prevent burnout before it happens,” she justifies.

That mindset was shaped partly by the physical toll of accepting too many irregular, high-stress appointments. When Brooke began noticing signs of tendonitis, she reconsidered how she scheduled demanding cats and where she needed firmer limits. The result is a business that supports a different lifestyle than the one she experienced as a dog groomer, and a model she hopes her employees can benefit from as their skills grow.

The next chapter for ABQ may include boarding, an expansion Brooke has considered for some time. Her more immediate priority, however, is developing her assistants into confident feline groomers who can work independently. That would increase ABQ’s capacity without making growth dependent on Brooke spending every work hour at the table.

Her advice to groomers considering a similar leap is candid: Feeling overwhelmed at the beginning does not mean the idea is failing. Competence and confidence are built through controlled, repeated experience, along with the willingness to adjust policies when the work begins taking too great a toll.

“There are moments when you think, ‘I cannot do this,’ and that is normal,” Brooke empathizes. “You may be scared for a few days or feel hesitant, but you can push through it. It gets better. It can actually get easy if you keep at it.”

ABQ Cat Grooming has come a long way from one table in an empty room, but the principle that continues to fill the appointment book has not changed: Cats deserve complete, professional grooming, and the people providing it need the training, trust and boundaries to do the job well. By building this principle into her feline-exclusive model, Brooke has created a salon where cleaner, more comfortable cats are more than a slogan; they are the business.