By Sam Kohl
If not for DOGS where would we all be? Dogs provide us, the grooming professionals, with the opportunity to showcase our creativity. In addition, there is our chance to earn a living doing something that we truly enjoy and find rewarding, while providing a health benefit for the dogs and their owners as well.
Most non–dog owners (and even some dog owners) are not aware of the many varied services and benefits these heroes deliver:
• First and foremost, they bring pleasure, understanding and unequivocal love, and ask nothing in return.
• They provide a major health benefit by making us exercise when walking them, playing tug–of–war with their toys, or just throwing a ball inside the house.
• They surely bring joy to all the children lucky enough to have them. They give them not only love and attention, but protect them as well by sensing danger.
• They help alleviate stress. When you play with them you forget the problems in your life. They even help lower blood pressure by relieving the built–up stress.
• Getting out in the fresh air and meeting other dog owners affords the chance to make new friends and even the possibility for business relationships.
• They are perfect aides for all children and adults with disabilities. Fortunately with this realization, dogs are now allowed in schools, offices, on buses, planes and trains, restaurants and housing developments where they used to be barred.
• They help detect seizures and diabetic shock so that medical attention can be provided, avoiding disastrous results.
• For the hearing impaired, they hear the doorbell, ringing of the phone, and even alert them to motor vehicle horns.
• They assist the visually impaired by walking side–by–side with them, avoiding falls, and keeping them safe from other possible accidents.
• They work wonders for our wounded heroes, returning with mental illnesses and physical injuries. These dogs’ lives are risked and sometimes sacrificed in combat.
• Dogs instinctively protect us from criminal harm as well. Due to their amazing sense of smell and hearing ability, they are used by law enforcement agencies to sniff out drugs and detect explosives.
The main benefit we grooming professionals provide for these heroes is helping to keep them healthy through grooming. We not only wash the allergens out of their coats, but we discover and uncover cysts, dental problems, ear, eye and skin conditions as well as geriatric onset problems.
I’ve always been proud to be a major part of helping keep them healthy through grooming education. What would we all do without dogs in our lives? Truthfully, I really don’t want to know! ✂