TradeNames: There's been no pause in growth at a Cabra dog grooming parlour, writes Rose Doyle

Fitzsimons' Grooming Parlour is something of a haven, for dogs anyway. White-painted, glass-fronted, full of light and cheer and relaxed business, it's where canines of all sorts come to have their nails trimmed and their coats washed, shone, coiffed and finally perfumed with a spray that smells for all the world like Johnson's baby powder.

You could be forgiven for thinking it's a haven for women too. The dogs in residence - a German Shepherd, a couple of Westies, a King Charles' spaniel - are having a good time at the hands of an entirely female, mostly Fitzsimons' family, staff.

Clare Fitzsimons tells the story of how the much-regarded dog grooming parlour at 80 Annamoe Road, Cabra came to be, with humour, common sense and anecdote. What she leaves out you know anyway; that there's been a lot of hard work, single minded determination and love of dogs involved is a given. She's a southsider who moved northside and stayed, who knew and worked for a legendary figure in the Irish dog world, found her niche in that world and never looked back. Never stopped working either.

She grew up in Dundrum, began working with dogs when she was 14 in 1957, "as a trainee with Agnes Murphy, a very, very renowned dog breeder, handler and groomer. She set up her Poodle Parlour after the war, a time when dog grooming was unheard of in Ireland, in Bloomfield Avenue, SCR. She was involved with the Kennel Club, she made-up and bred the first International Poodle Champion, travelling to Crufts in the 1950s and 1960s when people just didn't do that in Ireland."

Clare worked with Agnes Murphy for 13 years, until she set up her own business in 1970.

"Agnes called her place a Poodle Parlour because in those days all you had to groom were poodles. Because of our location, too, most of our customers came from the Jewish community - but we did Louis le Brocquy's poodle, too, and Audrey Hepburn's father's and two poodles owned by Sean T O'Kelly when he was president. One was called Toulouse. I forget what the other was called."

Clare got the bus to work every day from Dundrum. In an ideal world, she would have studied veterinary, "the equivalent of wanting to be an astronaut today!" What she did do, in time and having met Paddy Fitzsimons, was get married and move across the Liffey.

When her first daughter, Niamh, was born she stopped working but, "after six months I was missing it, so much".

She set up Fitzsimons' Grooming, in an extension to the house, in 1970. She and Paddy went on to have three girls. Niamh and Aoibheann (both of them after successful whirls with other careers) are in the business with her today, Dearbhaile is an engineer. "I fitted dog breeding, grooming and preparing dogs for shows in around rearing them," Clare says.

Things were different "in the 1960s and 1970s. There was no such thing as dog trimming. I feel as if I've been explaining dog grooming all my life. Things changed when the law stopped dogs wandering the streets.

"They had to move inside - and so did their smells and hair and all of that. It was around the time, too, that people began buying their own homes in serious numbers, and carpeting them. Suddenly all sorts of dogs needed grooming and washing."

All changes which "fitted in with the girls getting older. When they did, I insisted on all three of them going to college and working."

Which they did. Niamh studied land surveying and worked in the US and then here as a project manager before bringing her skills to the family business. Aoibheann, who'd worked all her holidays and after school time in the business, studied electronics and worked in Intel for a few years before she "saw the potential in what my mother was doing!"

The three of them, with trainee Tracey Reilly, work together giving devoted and thorough going attention to their canine customers.

Every dog has its day. The fashion for poodles was overtaken by a craze for Old English sheepdogs - "Dulux paint has an awful lot to to answer for" Niamh says - and, in the experimental 1970s, to Red Setters. Yorkshire and West Highland Terriers arrived in their time. "The Westie," Niamh says, "wiped out all the others, became the most popular dog ever. They took over because they were small and white and men didn't mind walking them because they were terriers and not 'girlie' dogs!"

Then along came the Bichon Frise, a current favourite. "They're poodle-like but much quieter," Clare says. "Poodles are lovely, lively and never stop bouncing. Bichons make great kids' pets and people love white dogs."

Her own dog's a Briard; "long and black and a cross between a companion and a dog. I used be the sole breeder of Briards in Ireland but I stopped because people weren't looking after them. For every three I sold two came back. They're very big and very hairy."

What she doesn't say, but Niamh tells, is that Clare bred a Crufts champion in her Briard, Misneach.

Business, always good, seriously boomed after Niamh and Aoibheann came on board. Aoibheann had prepared herself by doing a business course, Niamh brought project management expertise and they "totally revamped things. We'd so much work we had to look for a new premises," Clare says.

Finding the right place wasn't easy and took time - 80 Annamoe Road, when they found it, was perfect. Rear access, plenty of light, on a quiet road, glass to the front, not far from faithful customers, necessary safety features. "It's absolutely ideal," Clare says.

They set up there in 2003 and love it. "Our client list is closed," Niamh says, "which has to do with the higher profile of having our name in lights over the door (this raises a laugh) and our reputation."

Paddy Fitzsimons, husband and father, now that he's retired, cooks and delivers their lunch every day.

It takes between two and two-and-a-half hours to groom a dog, depending on size and hairiness. Every dog is unique, every dog "an art in itself, a blank canvas with a breed standard", Clare says. "Most people ask for a good tidy up and most dogs don't mind being groomed. We don't sedate dogs. It's unnecessary. There are very, very few wicked dogs. In all my 45 years with dogs I've only ever had two I had to send home ungroomed."

They start at 9am daily and finish at 5.30pm, which means they're together eight hours a day. "It's great," Clare says, "when you're dealing with animals you're totally focused. You have to be." She announces she's getting ready for retirement and there's a loud, general laugh.

They work away on the Westies and King Charles. The German Shepherd has long gone, pleased with himself and looking great. They talk, all four of them, to chatty agreement from Aoibheann's toddler, Leo, about dogs and their history and why and how they're trimmed a particular way. "You have to be something of an animal behaviourist and dog psychologist," Clare says, "I think like a dog after all these years."

Niamh adds that "dogs come in and look at me disparagingly. Then they look at mam and see the top dog and all's well".

The average grooming cost for a small dog is about €40. A wash and blow dry is €20. "After that," Niamh says, "the sky's the limit."

It's hard and wonderful work and is not, they stress, glamorous. They do dressage on horses, too, but that's another story and for another day.

Their basic tips for home grooming include an initial and good brushing of your pet, the use of warm water (never cold which dogs hate) and doing the top of the head last and carefully or he/she will think they're drowning. All common sense in the everyday world of dogs.