Vlada Markov has an eye for a business opportunity.

When the 2017 Mountain Pointe High School alum was only 9 years old, she stepped up immediately when her next-door neighbor, a flight attendant, needed a reliable pet sitter.

She expanded that into a home-based pet grooming business. Then, two years ago, Markov opened a full-fledged pet grooming operation called Paws With Claws Pet Spa in the Ahwatukee Palms Plaza at Warner Road and 48th Street.

So it’s not surprising that the 25-year-0ld Arizona State University grad acted when she noticed that Ahwatukee lacked one other amenity for pets and their owners: a luxury resort.

And so Markov has added to her physical space and expanded her business’ name to Paws With Claws Pet Spa & Resort.

The spacious addition accommodates luxury overnight and extended boarding, daycare and training for dogs whose owners need more than a nail-trimming or shampoo for their canine household members.

The approximate 1,000-square-foot addition – with a 432-square-foot backyard – offers everything a pet and its human would want in a facility billed as a resort. 

Along with six standard 4’x 6’ luxury bedrooms and an 8’ x 7’ suite with a TV comes a giant supervised play area where the guests can meet and play with each other.

“Every dog that’s friendly gets to come out and play in the daycare area during the day so they can unwind a little bit,” Markov said. If they’re not friendly, we do private one-on-one sessions with a handler.”

“We have cameras as well but we have somebody there just to make sure that whenever anything might happen or if they do need to go outside and go potty, we’re there to let them out for that as well,” she added.

And because she has an overnight staff, the friendly canines have the option of gathering with the other pooches in the play area for a night of fun and games.

The one thing she does ask owners to provide is food.

“We do have an in-house dog food if we need it but we prefer the clients’ right now,” Markov said. “We definitely prefer if the client brings their own dog food just so their dog doesn’t get upset with us.”

Markov decided to add a resort to her business as she exited home grooming and focused on her spa.

“I didn’t really have time to go to people’s houses or have pets in my home anymore,” she explained. “So I thought thi would be great because we have a need for it in this community.

“I know vets offer boarding but it’s mostly kennel-based and I wanted to offer something more unique,” she continued. “I have a dog that I know would not do well being kept in a kennel. He needs to see a person in order to be calm at night – or at any point in the day.

“So I wanted to have something that would offer that homestyle feel to the dogs.”

When. Markov began what’s become a career of canine care at 9, she realized even then that she just wasn’t going to dog-sit for her neighbor’s puppy.

“I was training her,” she told AFN several years ago. “I did a lot of research and I was able to pick up a lot on my own. I taught her obedience and worked with her on socialization.”

At 13, she convinced her parents that she could handle the care of a dog of her own.  She adopted a cattle dog from Scottsdale’s Fedwell Farm Rescue she named her Willow.

Markov branched into pet grooming during high school and continued to do pet sitting and grooming after enrolling at ASU, where she joined the Canine Science Collaboratory under psychology professor and “Dog is Love” author, Clive D. L. Wynne, eventually serving as a research assistant.

“I worked hard with the Canine Science Collaboratory, running several behavioral and welfare studies for pet and shelter dogs,” she said, adding that studying dog welfare in animal shelters was a large part of the program.

“In the rescue project, I worked with owners and their pet dogs to teach them to open a big door to a box…The owners would be ‘trapped’  inside the box and the dog would rescue them or otherwise react to this.”

She eventually co-authored a publication on this project titled “Yes, Your Dog Wants to Rescue You.”

 Markov also organized “field trips” for shelter dogs, working with Washington State, Detroit, and other shelters across the U.S. as volunteers took a canine “for the day or a few hours and removing them from the shelter environment and taking them to a hike, lake or restaurant.”

“The volunteer would then fill out a sheet about the dog to express their personality,” Markov said. 

“Our trips were for data collection; we recorded adoption rates, analyzed urine to test stress levels before, during, and after the field trip, and overall made sure our programs were beneficial to the welfare of the shelter dogs.”

Markov also headed a project at the Arizona Animal Welfare League shelter that tracked the activity of dogs in the shelter 10 days before and after adoption. 

“This was a unique study, with no others of its kind,” said Markov. I also won first place in the AZPURC (Arizona Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference) poster contest at ASU for this study. It had to be ended early due to COVID restrictions, but is intended to be a publishable study.”

Markov said though she originally considered veterinary studies at ASU, but chose a different path. She graduated from ASU with a dual major of biology (neuroscience physiology and behavior) and psychology with a business minor.

Though she’s been open less than a month, her new facility took off fast.

“We were fully booked for the suites over the Christmas holiday and on New Year’s weekend we were booked as well,” she said. “We still had room in the open room but all the suites were booked up.”

That reflects a momentum that developed after she opened her spa two years ago, when she remarked, “I had a good client base built up and that helped, and now word of mouth is helping the business grow even more.”

Markov is starting dog temperament tests and evaluations and is offering a free half-day of daycare through the end of the month and if dog passes, they get to sign up for the daycare program.

And cat owners need not feel left out: Markov hopes to open a room for felines at the resort in the near future.

To learn more about her spa services: grooming@pawswclaws.com, PawsWClaws.com or 480-791-4197.