A journalist for more than eight years, Vicky Waltz traded pencils and notebooks for scissors and clippers when she embarked on a new career path in dog grooming at age 30.
Vicky’s penchant for pigtails and sweet corn can likely be traced to her hometown of Wooster, Ohio, where Amish buggies are as common as pickup trucks. While earning her bachelor’s degree at Ohio University, Vicky worked as a bather at a friend’s grooming salon during holiday breaks, and on several occasions even contemplated ditching college for grooming.
Vicky was a reporter for a newspaper in Virginia and for Boston University’s daily news website before resigning to attend grooming school. She joined the Urban Hound staff as its sole groomer shortly after the hotel opened in 2011. As the spa manager, Vicky currently oversees a department of five, and she is also responsible for booking all grooming appointments. So if you’re texting with someone on the spa cell phone, you’re likely speaking with Vicky.
Vicky has two dogs — a boxer/lab named Indigo, aka the weirdest dog on the planet, and a shih tzu mix named Val—as well as two cats named President Laura Roslin and Admiral Bill Adama. Indigo and Val like to hike and camp, and Indigo also enjoys going on field trips with her Urban Hound friends. Bill likes to chase his spiral toys and sleep in the sun, and Roslin likes to shred paper, knock stuff off of shelves, and drag a full-sized blanket around the house.
An avid hiker, Vicky has climbed 29 (and counting) of New Hampshire’s 48 4,000-foot peaks. She lives next to Middlesex Fells Reservation, and you’ll find her hiking the trails behind her house nearly every afternoon with her wife and the dogs. Other hobbies include reading, gardening, camping, painting, swimming, and rewatching Battlestar Galactica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After a more than 10-year hiatus from writing, Vicky completed a short story during 2020’s Covid quarantine. It was a cathartic moment, and eventually she hopes to do more creative writing.
