HONOLULU (KHON2) — A pet groomer who made it big on YouTube is shining a light on a local animal shelter. It’s part of a big travel journey aimed at helping rescues around the world.
What was just supposed to be a summer job turned into a career for Vanessa De Prophetis. She’s also a popular social media influencer known as @TheGirlWithTheDogs.
De Prophetis has been a pet groomer for 13 years. Since starting her YouTube channel in 2020, her following has grown to more than two million people.
“My business was closed down because of the pandemic and I had clients asking me for tutorials on how to groom their pets at home,” said De Prophetis. “So, I just started making content and it just kind of exploded from there.”
She’s now traveling to help pets around the world in hopes of getting shelters recognized – the Kauai Humane Society being one of them.
“I get messages, emails, phone calls all the time from different shelters that just know of animals that need help asking me to help,” stated De Prophetis. “I just thought after receiving so many requests that maybe I should try to make it a mission where I go to them.”
De Prophetis visited the Kauai Humane Society (KHS) in late March and lent a hand to its staff.
“We happened to have a litter of puppies that came in. It was perfect because they needed to be bathed,” stated KHS Executive Director & CEO, Padraic Gallagher. “She kind of explains a little bit more in-depth about how to actually bathe your dog and stuff like that. She gives a lot of good tips.”
KHS said it’s the start of a busy kitten season and will be pushing for more adoptions as well as mainland transfers. Its capacity is between 80 to 90 dogs and cats. As of now, the shelter has slightly over 100 pets.
“I learned that they had a program where you could go there and get a dog for the day and go on a field trip with the dog. I thought that was really cool because where I’m from, the shelters don’t have anything like that,” stated De Prophetis.
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The pet groomer and influencer said she hasn’t decided on her next stop just yet.
“I absolutely love the island, and I want to keep going back as much as I possibly can. So, for me, I thought a great way to give back to the island that has given me so much is to volunteer my time to help the animals and help some of the people on the island as well,” said De Prophetis.