Fleiss’ business moving at a fast clip
Are you one of those people who treats your dog like a furry little child?
Heidi Fleiss wants to be your baby sitter.
After almost two years of false starts and legal problems, the former Hollywood madam has finally launched her dog hotel and grooming business in the southern part of the valley.
First Pedigree actually opened quietly about five months ago in a Wal-Mart shopping center at Silverado Ranch Boulevard and Bermuda Road. Until now, though, Fleiss said she didn’t have the right people to run the place.
Her new partners in the venture are former Playboy model Yvette Lopez and former Chippendales dancer Jasen Johnston.
The camera-ready couple is handling day-to-day operations at First Pedigree.
Fleiss joked that her original name for the business was Doggy Style, but she decided to go with something classier and more professional instead.
First Pedigree is also a reference to the certified dog grooming classes she hopes to offer starting in July.
"When you’re done with this class, you can go groom at the Westminster dog show," Fleiss boasted.
She added that eight people have already signed up for the training, including three licensed prostitutes from a bordello in Nye County who she said are looking for "a career after hooking."
REINVENTING A MADAM
Fleiss knows a little something about that. At age 45, she is still trying — and struggling — to reinvent herself two decades after she was busted for running a high-priced ring of call girls to the stars.
She moved to Pahrump in 2005 to open a legal brothel for women called the Stud Farm, but the idea never got off the ground.
Since then, she has been arrested for drug possession, treated for addiction on reality TV, burned out of her house, sued several times and ordered to pay roughly $50,000 in damages to her former landlord.
Fleiss thought the dog grooming business would be easy money, especially after she heard about the billions of dollars people spend on their pets every year. So far, it hasn’t worked out that way.
She made her first foray into the business in 2009 when she took over an existing shop and reopened it under the name Dirty Dog.
A Clark County judge shut down the operation after only a few days because of a divorce dispute involving the former owners.
Her second attempt, First Pedigree, opened around the first of the year, but Fleiss quickly ran into problems — and more legal trouble — with the people she found to run it for her.
"I function in chaos," she said with a shrug. "If life wasn’t a challenge, it wouldn’t be fun."
Now she’s counting on a close friend to finally get her business on track.
Yvette Lopez is a model and signer who has appeared in Playboy six times.
She said she grew up around pets and livestock at her family’s spread in rural New Mexico. Her mother started a dog rescue organization, and Lopez now shares her home in Las Vegas with four pups of her own.
Her boyfriend, Jasen Johnston, has worked on an crab boat in Alaska, tended bar in Las Vegas, toured Europe with Chippendales and posed nude in Playgirl.
He also had dogs as a kid, but he said he’s still learning the ropes when it comes to the boarding and grooming business.
He doesn’t know his breeds very well yet, so he refers to the dogs by size — small, medium and large — he said with a laugh.
THE CLIENTELE MAKES THE JOB
Luckily, he’s working with a pretty happy-go-lucky clientele.
"That’s what’s cool about dogs. They’re always glad to see you, and they don’t talk back," Johnston said.
The 2,000-square-foot business features raised wash basins covered in decorative tile where customers can wash their own pups or hand them over to a groomer. There is a windowed playpen in the front and a boarding area in back where dogs are kept in wooden hutches with shingled roofs.
"It’s our Four Seasons in there," Fleiss said.
The shelves are lined with hand-labeled bottles of organic dog shampoos and other brightly colored pet products. The walls are decorated with simple dog-themed paintings by Fleiss’ own hand.
"It’s just like a fancy salon in Beverly Hills," she said.
Lopez said several people have wandered into the shop looking for Fleiss, including one or two who claimed to know her to try to get out of paying the bill.
Other dog owners come and go without ever knowing Fleiss is involved.
Johnston said most of the customers he has talked to seem excited — not alarmed — when they find out about the business’ famous owner.
"It’s a very positive thing," he said. "I’d like to keep her here all the time."
So why not put that up on the sign out front, maybe call the place Heidi Fleiss’ First Pedigree?
"I just want to run a great business. It shouldn’t be based on my name," Fleiss explained. "If I have to use my name, it’s kind of pathetic."
Besides, she said, who needs to advertise when you will soon have your own reality series on Animal Planet?
DETAILS NEED TO BE HAMMERED OUT
The deal hasn’t been finalized, but the show’s pilot has been filmed. It chronicles Fleiss as she opens her business in Las Vegas and shares her home in Pahrump with 19 free-ranging exotic birds.
The working title is "Prostitutes to Parrots," Fleiss said.
Her birds are partly to blame for some of the early troubles at First Pedigree. Fleiss said she was "an absentee owner" for the first few months because she needed to look after her flock while workers rebuilt the parts of her home damaged in a Thanksgiving Day fire last year.
Now that her house is finished and First Pedigree is finally up and running, she said she plans to work at the shop — maybe even groom some dogs — a few times each month.
Just don’t expect to find her there every day. Heidi Fleiss is allergic to dogs.
Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.
