Hounded in Hollywood! - KIWI DOG GROOMER'S CELEBRITY TELL-ALL

Some of the biggest stars brought their pampered best friends to this talented stylist. They’d have been barking mad not to!

- Fleur Guthrie

From the diva dogs with designer Louis Vuitton collars to Brad Pitt’s rescue pup (a British bulldog called Jacques) and Katy Perry’s vegan poodle Nugget, Erana Ferrone, 39, has performed many a trans-fur-mation as an award-winning “dog groomer to the stars”.

The mum-of-one spent a decade working at one of Hollywood’s most elite pet salons before returning to Auckland and opening her own grooming business, Hollywoof.

She tells the Weekly why moving to Tinseltown was the best decision she ever made.

“As a little girl, I was never into dolls – animals were my only love, and I had every pet imaginable and went on to ride horses. One day at Northcote College, the Servilles hairdressing academy came to school for careers day, and I said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’

“So at 16, I left school to go there and ended up graduating as the top student. Four years later, I co-owned a salon and one of my clients was a dog groomer. I had never really heard of it but told her, ‘Oh, I’d love to do that’, and she offered to train me for free if I helped her out on a part-time basis.

“In 2007, I went on a three-week trip to Los Angeles to visit a friend over there. There were grooming salons on every corner and the dogs walking the streets were accessorised. Some of them were in baby strollers or carried in bags inside restaurants or taken to the gym while their owners lifted some weights. I was like, ‘Wow, this place is crazy about their dogs.’