Attention puppy parents: Zoom Room Tacoma is opening this weekend and you’re invited
Tacoma is now home to a national indoor dog-training franchise that has nearly 40 U.S. locations in operation.
Zoom Room Tacoma, 3105 S. Tyler St., is having its grand opening this weekend (April 1-2). The site was formerly a 7-Eleven near Center Street.
During the weekend, the business will offer agility classes at reduced cost and have an onsite caricature artist to create a take-home drawing of your dog. The classes for opening weekend are filled, according to Zoom Room Tacoma’s owner/operator Walker Hollrah, but those interested can sign on to a waiting list on its website.
“We’ll have food from MSM Deli there, and we’ll have baked goods from Corina Bakery, and snacks and drinks available,” he told The News Tribune in an interview Thursday.
There also will be an adoption event April 2 featuring local rescue groups and shelters such as Forgotten Dogs Rescue, Hello Pitty Rescue, People for Animal Care and Kindness (PACK) and the Tacoma Humane Society.
“We’re donating 10 percent of our revenue from the entire weekend toward one of those organizations,” Hollrah said, “And we will have a giving tree on site for people to donate to any of these organizations.”
Zoom Room offers small group classes or private training sessions teaching obedience and dog agility, as well puppy training and enrichment workshops in an indoor climate-controlled gym.
It also offers playgroups and private gym sessions, and space for doggy birthday parties.
Zoom Room was founded in 2007 and started offering franchises two years later. In January, the company announced it had signed its 100th location. It has grown from locations in eight states in 2020 to 27 states by the end of last year.
Hollrah got involved with the chain as a client, taking his puppy for training at a California location when he lived there. He moved to Tacoma last May and signed a lease for the Tacoma site last fall.
“I’ve been pretty heavily involved with the rescue and shelter community in the last couple of years and just saw working in that environment, a lot of churn rate and a lot of dogs being returned because of behavioral issues,” he said. “And it just seemed like there’s a need out there for more of that.”
He said he believes “that if we’ve got more well-trained dogs in this world, perhaps we can kind of reduce some of the stress on animal shelters and rescues around the country.”
Hollrah said converting the site from a former convenience store to a training facility was challenging.
“Construction has been going since about Thanksgiving of last year,” he said. “And it was a long road. There was a good amount of work to be done. We ripped out a lot of stuff in the building, and renovated the whole thing.”
He pointed out the advantages of the location.
“We’re close to the Humane Society, which is wonderful because we do want to lend support to them where we can. We are a standalone building, which is great,” Hollrah said. “We’ve got a good parking situation for people to bring their pups.”
As for what’s next, he said, “At some point we will be offering tricks classes, and we’ll probably be doing some kind of an intro to tricks class special in the near future, just so people can decide whether or not that’s something that they are interested in.”
He added, “People should stay tuned for other workshops that we will be rolling out.”
Hollrah hopes to learn from customers what to expand or offer next.
“If there are events that people are interested in, or that they want to see, please talk to us. We’d love to hear feedback,” he said. “And additionally, on the the rescue-fund front, if you have any interest in partnering with us on any initiatives in that arena, we’d love to hear from you. We do plan to be hosting regular adoption events moving forward.”
Zoom Room Tacoma
▪ 3105 S. Tyler St., open 7 days a week; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
▪ Phone: (253) 254-6192
▪ Website: zoomroom.com/location/tacoma/
▪ Facebook: facebook.com/ZoomRoom.Tacoma
▪ Instagram: instagram.com/zoomroomtacoma/
