Oliver is a little Havanese who comes in to be groomed every eight weeks. I can't say it makes me happy to see his name on the schedule; Oliver annoys me. He almost always poops on the floor the moment he enters my studio. I have asked his humans to walk him before he comes in, but Ollie has an uncanny ability to hold it until he is in the door. And he whines. From the moment I put him in the tub, throughout the grooming process, until he sees his owner, at which point the whines turn to ear-splitting screams. Sometimes, I wear my velocity-drying hearingprotection the whole time he is with me, but even that doesn't totally block out that irritating sound.
Another thing about Oliver is that he has trouble being still. He wiggles and wags, dances, and squirms. He is a perpetual motion machine. He does not get brushed at home, so there is always a little dematting to do, and he is not cooperative about being brushed, combed, clipped, or scissored. With every tiny sound he hears, he jerks his head to try to see the source, which makes creating a cute face style very tricky and even a little dangerous.
It would be easy to lose my temper with Oliver, scold him, shake him, and let all his annoying mannerisms get under my skin. But I have a trick that I use when dogs test my patience. My trick is that I remember that this noisy, poopy, whirling dervish of a dog is someone's beloved pet. I think about how I would want my precious dog treated if he were being groomed by someone else.
Here is an example of how much people love their pets despite their sometimes-challenging personalities. A lady brought her completely adorable, fluffy little dog in for us to groom. She warned us to use a muzzle. She assured us he would bite. She told us he bit her often. He bit her partner so frequently that the man refused to be in the same room with him. He bit strangers on the street and every employee at the veterinarian's office. We managed to groom him, but it wasn't easy. He looked even cuter, all groomed, and danced happily at his owner's feet as she paid us. She thanked us for taking care of him and said, with great sincerity, "I just want to assure you ladies that this is a very, very good dog. Except for that little biting thing."
When we can see the dogs that we groom as feeling creatures that are beloved by their people, it makes it easier to work around their problematic behaviors.
