Meet Corina Owens!
Dignified Pet Services presents 'People in the Neighborhood'
While Show Dogs Grooming Salon and Boutique’s name conjures images of red carpets, bright lights and posh pooches, the shop's owner is more like the girl next store: easy-going, friendly, and warm. Get closer though, and she does sparkle!
In addition to being a successful businesswoman, Corina Owens is a beloved daughter, sister and auntie, as well as an accomplished pianist who plays gospel at her church and can pound out the theme to Star Wars. A fan of love songs, she plays at weddings, too.
She's also a life-long dog lover whose first childhood puppy — a Terrier-Pekingese mix named Poppy — actually chose her.
When Corina was about 8, she spent every day after school playing with Poppy, her Aunt Teresa's puppy. In time, seeing how much her niece loved the dog, Corina's aunt told her to take him home. Poppy slept in a box next to Corina’s bed, and she and her five siblings kept him secret for a while. But when her dad eventually found out, he said the dog had to go.
The puppy was rehomed with a family friend who had more dog experience — but soon after, he returned.
"Poppy somehow found his way back to me," Corina says.
How did that work without her father’s permission? "My dad actually ended up loving Poppy more than we did," she laughs. "We had him for years and years after that."
After Poppy, the family always had dogs, and it fostered a life-long love of canines that eventually inspired Corina's career.
Corina's pack
"I wanted to open a business," she remembers."I was going over some ideas of what I could do every day and not get tired of it and it came to me — dogs!"
While Corina is not a groomer herself, she takes pride in operating a business that specializes in spoiling her clients' dogs—just like she'd want her own six dogs treated.
"A comfortable place that feels like home," is how she describes the atmosphere at Show Dogs. "With the best products, best equipment, and a place where they feel comfortable dropping their pets off and feel good about it. And treated with respect."
When Corina isn't busy running the salon, she enjoys pulling on a pair of her favorite comfy UGG boots (blingy ones) and walking her pack of Toy Poodles: Red, Pepper, Bailey, Brownie, Jacques, and Poochie.
"They sometimes go rogue," she laughs. "My walking usually consists of zig-zagging."
Handling large groups of little ones is familiar to Corina. While she doesn't have children of her own, she is the oldest of 48 grandchildren, and is auntie to 20 nieces and nephews.
"I am not child-deprived in any way," she laughs.
Sunday dinners with the family, catching a good movie — she's especially fond of the Bill Murray classic What About Bob? — and enjoying a night out at Kennedy School round out this native Portlander's full life.
Corina also has three big items on her bucket list to check off, two of which are learning to swim and ride horseback. The third is a goal most dog lovers are not only familiar with, but definitely share.
"I'm trying to become the person my dogs think I am," she says.
About our Sponsor
Dignified Pet Services has served the Portland-area community for 13 years. In addition to their core business of cremation and memorial services, Dignified co-sponsors the beloved annual Service of Remembrance at The Old Church in downtown Portland, as well as serving as wonderful supporters and friends of pets and those working in animal welfare. Proprietors Michael, Randy and Avani live in Sherwood.
Michele Coppola is a veteran Portland radio personality and copywriter for Entercom Radio as well as the new Managing Editor for Spot Magazine. She shares a home and couch space with her three rescue pooches Lucy, Bailey, and Ginny--as well as Bryon, the stray man she married six years ago.