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By HILARY MATHESON

Daily Inter Lake

An easygoing nature, sense of humor and a kinship with canines is kind of a requirement to be with dogs morning to night.

After a long day grooming and caring for dogs on Sept. 19, Lynnie Evans flipped the “open” sign to “closed” at her Evergreen business, Pawsitively Perfect. Sitting cross-legged on a grooming table she brushed a wisp of stray dog hair off her smocked shoulder.

The tap of tiny paws on the wood floor could be heard as one of her own dogs, a rescue senior toy poodle named Tinkerbell, walked over to check things out, her tongue lolling out of her mouth to one side.

“She only had 17 teeth when I adopted her. Fifteen of them were bad. She doesn’t have teeth now,” Evans said, yet it’s part of Tinkerbell’s signature style, which includes ears tinged with hot pink.

Tinkerbell is the most recent addition to Evans’ family, which includes her husband Russ, several grown children and four other dogs, all rescues. Evans first saw Tinkerbell on the last day of a grooming conference.

“She was part of the Rescue Rodeo competition. Someone else was grooming her. I just saw her face and we made eye contact ... and it was just, ‘she’s coming home with me,’” Evans said.

Throughout her life, Evans, 51, said she couldn’t think of a dog breed that she hasn’t had.

“I’ve been adopting dogs since I was a little girl. I would adopt them and bring them home. Many times I would hide dogs in my room until I would get caught with them,” Evans said with a laugh. “Then, they would just become part of the family.”

Of course she’s had other pets — cats, birds, reptiles, horses, pygmy goats, an alligator and a raccoon — but she’s partial to the unconditional friendship dogs provide.

As a teenager, she briefly adopted the raccoon after discovering its mother had been hit on the road.

“Not good pets by the way,” she said while recounting the story. “I only kept him for about four or five months. They get into ev-ery-thing,” she said with emphasis.

Keeping a pet alligator named Boots also didn’t end well.

“I think they were selling them at a pet store in Havre. It was a baby. I want to say it was a little caiman. I had it in a tank and there was a freshwater lobster as well and it drowned it. That’s the best I can figure,” Evans said holding up her hands in a shrug. “The lobster was sitting on him. Just weird.”

Caring for dogs, however, has always seemed to come easily, she said.

“I’ve just always been very comforted by them,” Evans said. “They’re so non-judgmental. They’re just there all the time. You can leave the room for five minutes or five hours and they’re just as happy to see you when you come back. I love that.”

Evans said she knew as a child she wanted to be in the pet industry.

“And not necessarily what I’m doing now, but I knew I was going to be working with animals,” Evans said.

At first she wanted to become a veterinarian and volunteered at a vet clinic in her hometown of Cut Bank, but quickly discovered that career was not for her.

“Losing people’s pets was just too much,” Evans said.

After graduating high school, she didn’t go directly into grooming or pet care. She began with the “two-leggeds” as she called it, graduating from beauty school and working in that industry for five years, but didn’t like it.

She then turned her sights back on pet grooming.

“Anybody who would let me groom their pet when I was little I would do it always for free,” Evans said.

She then went to a grooming business in Havre and asked if the groomer would teach her the profession. The groomer — who is one of Evans’ friends to this day — turned her down. Wanting to gain insight into the profession, Evans went to the groomer’s business to observe her working. When the woman opened a grooming school, it still took time before Evans was accepted as a student, so she began doing what she could on her own and groomed the dogs of friends and family. Finally, in 2005, her talent was recognized and she was accepted to the Montana School of Professional Dog Grooming — a school she later acquired and is currently revamping. Eventually Evans hopes to scale back on grooming, which is physically taxing, and do more instruction.

“Grooming is an unregulated business at this point,” Evans said, but receiving an education from a certified master groomer was important to her. “It’s not just giving haircuts.”

“We are working very hard in the industry to create those regulations and those standards of care just because there’s lots of dogs that get injured. You see it all the time. There’s things you need to be able to identify,” she said, such as dog behaviors — which protects both dog and person — canine skin conditions, breed and coat types, for example, in addition to the techniques and tools of the trade.

Evans briefly moved to Minnesota to start her career and came back to Montana for a family reunion in 2012 when she boarded her dogs at Pawsitively Perfect.

“Loved this place. Loved the setup,” Evans said. “I told the former owner, “If she ever wanted to sell ...,” and gave her my information.”

In a matter of months she became the new owner.

While Evans finds relaxing aspects to dog grooming, the dog should find it relaxing as well, she said. A dog’s appreciation for grooming will vary widely from one client to another, which is why it’s good to have training. When Evans says it’s time for a bath, some dogs will go sit in the tub waiting patiently. Other dogs, however —

“They’re like ‘nuh-uh, not today, Satan,’” Evans said, leaning forward with her hands on her knees laughing. “So you have to be sensitive to their feelings. You try to make it as positive of an experience as possible. It really should be a fun thing. They have to do it their whole life.”

Even if she spends most of the day with dogs, people skills are just as important.

“When people come in and say, ‘Oh I’d love to work with dogs because people drive me crazy,’ you have to remember there’s someone at the end of the leash. You still have to work with people,” she said.

In addition to dogs, Evans also has a quarter horse and recently bought a gypsy vanner horse with the goal to learn wagon pulling. She is also a member of the Flathead Shelter Friends board.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.