PROCTORVILLE — It’s a chance to spruce up man’s best friend just the way you do the family car.

That’s the whole idea behind a new addition to the downtown businesses in Proctorville called Paws and Wheels that offers the chance to wash the car and the pooch at the same locale.

“It is a new business that is more popular out west, but just now coming to our area,” Linda Crabtree, owner, said. “I saw it online and started doing some research. Then I got a hold of the company that makes them.”

Crabtree and her husband, Greg, are already known in the eastern end as the owners of Global Liquidation and recently opened another liquidation store on Fourth Avenue in Huntington, W.Va.

She and her husband bought a car wash on State Street in Proctorville about six months ago and just recently closed in one of the bays for a “doggie wash.”

There are two stainless steel stations each with a ramp where a dog can be walked up to the bathing area.

“You take your dog in and it has stainless steel tubs with chains to hook to their collar,” she said.

On the wall beside the tubs is a coin-operated box where dog owners can select the kind of shampoo wash they want along with rinses and special treatments.

“They get water, shampoo, conditioners, tick and flea treatment, also fragrance,” Crabtree said.

The amount of product and water is determined by the amount of money put in the box. Each minute costs $1.25 and usually bathing a dog will cost between $5 and $7.

“It depends on how fast you work and how much product you use,” she said.

Then a vacuum can be used to suck out the water and loose hair from the dog’s coat.

Since the dog wash is in a climate-controlled area, it is open 24 hours a day year-round.

“It has done very well,” Crabtree said.