Mr. Jones hands over his elderly cocker/poodle mix for its grooming appointment and says worriedly, "Please try not to cut off his lumps and bumps this time." You might not have had to roll your eyes quite as hard as you did, but you remember that you have talked about this topic with Mr. Jones on more than one occasion in the recent past.
The dog on your table is bathed, dried, brushed, and ready to have some length clipped off. You snap a blade on your clipper and get to work. All is well for the first few swipes, but then you notice that the fur is ridged, uneven, and choppy where it was cut instead of a nice, uniform finish.
Many educational social media page groomers ask this question: "How can I groom faster?" I have a suggestion. Start timing yourself. Most of us always keep our cell phones nearby, and the clock on our phones has a stopwatch feature. Using it and jotting notes on how long various aspects of the grooming process take, you can illuminate areas where you may be able to shave a few minutes here and there. Those minutes add up. I recently timed myself as I groomed a fifty-pound Golden retriever/poodle mix.
"How can I get customers to pre-book?" a groomer recently wrote on a networking page. "I recently bought a business, and the customers are accustomed to making appointments online. It's nerve-wracking for me because the schedule will look wide open, but then there is a sudden flurry, and it gets full."
Have you ever experienced a moment (or more!) while grooming a pet when you felt completely overwhelmed? Here are some examples:
The three sizes of Schnauzers (miniature, standard, and giant) are frequent visitors to grooming shops everywhere, with the Miniature version being the most popular. These sturdy little dogs make good pets and have specific and frequent grooming needs.
I happily groomed Newfoundland’s, St. Bernards, Irish Wolfhounds, and the like for the first thirty years of my grooming career. I experienced all the fun these giant dogs can offer, like trying to lift them when they pretend they have no legs and do a pancake imitation, or when they decide to drag you from place to place. I spent hours washing, conditioning, drying, brushing, and trimming, and to be honest, I loved it. Seeing a huge, clean, well-groomed dog wag its way to greet its owners always made me happy.
Every pet we brush exposes us to dirt, dust, and dander in animals' coats. When we clip hair, fragments of it are in the air we breathe. When we buff the claws, the residue floats around us. And then there is drying, when we aim high volumes of air directly into the fur, causing skin cells, tiny particles, and even chemical residue from the products we use to become airborne.
Although cats are well-known for their attempts to self-groom, many require a bath. Pet owners are often surprised to learn that most cats tolerate a bath quite well if it is given in a feline-friendly manner. “What is that?” you ask. The steps are outlined below.
Many pet owners think their cat should not be bathed because they believe cats don’t like water. However, many cats tolerate the bathing process very well if the procedure is feline-friendly. Getting dry seems to be more objectionable to most cats. There are ways to safely and kindly dry cats. Read on to learn how.
