Groomers do a lot of their work standing up, and there is a good bit of walking involved in our work as well. Did you know that with every mile we walk we experience 200,000 to 300,000 pounds of stress on our feet? Considering that in our business we are often carrying a dog when we walk, you can multiply those numbers.
Groom Texas Joins the Houston World Series of Dog Shows
“The Houston World Series of Dog Shows is the longest continuous AKC Cluster Show in the country,” says Cluster Coordinator, Tom Pincus. “This is our thirty-eighth year. We had an entry of 12,500 dogs over the five day show.”
As I was driving down the aptly named Long Mountain Road just after another snowstorm, I looked to the side and half jokingly thought, “If I drive off the road and land in the ravine, I won’t be found until next spring.” The next thought that crossed my mind was, “ Oh crap, if I drive off the road and land in the ravine, I won’t be found until next spring.”
A few issues ago, I devoted this column to the subject of the history of the professional grooming industry. Shirlee Kalstone and I have collectively wondered why no one has ever attempted to document how far the art of grooming has advanced in the past few decades from their modest beginnings. Shirlee recalls years ago in the mid-1970’s, while at the All-American Grooming Show in Chicago, that she was shocked to read a blurb in one of the Chicago papers that in the scheme of things “dog groomers were placed slightly above garbage collectors” who were on the bottom of their list.
I decided many years ago that I wanted to be that old lady that zip lines, jumps out of an airplane, and dances to the wee hours of the morning. But, in order to be in a position to do so, I have found it will be far easier to maintain my good health now than trying to repair decades of damage later on.
Mary Oquendo coined this phrase back in the early days of petgroomer.com. It stuck in my mind, because in the grooming profession, you can’t always promise pretty.
In a perfect world, puppies, kittens, dogs, and cats, would stand on our grooming tables like statues.
How do we deal with stress? Or maybe the question should be, can we eliminate stress from our lives? Well, of course not…stress is all around us. How we handle that stress is vital to our well-being. Before we can deal with stress, we need to look at what leads us into that state of frustration. Recognizing when we are reaching an emotional breakdown is critical to our response.
As a professional pet stylist, what does the word “success” mean to you? I asked this question and got some really interesting responses, which I wanted to share. “I found a niche that suits my grooming skills, personality, and passion for helping pets and their guardians,” says Renee Pierre, owner of Joyful Grooming House Call Pet Service
GroomTeam USA, Inc. is pleased to announce the launch of the applications for the Lonnie Lange Memorial Scholarship Fund. There are two levels of awards; one for college education, with two awards, and the other for grooming education.
When I attended grooming school, I was taught how to give a bath and fluff dry. I learned how to pluck and clean ears, clip nails, and give haircuts to the dogs or kitties on my grooming table. With time, I have learned that these are not the only tasks that are a part of our profession; there is an emotional and spiritual connection that comes with being a pet stylist.
But I do brush him!” We’ve all heard it. We’re all cynical, because we all know the dog would not be matted if he had been actually brushed… right?
Except – have you visited a retail pet shop in the past 30 years? The top selling brush in America has pins on one side, bristles on the other.
Have you ever gone to your dentist for a filling, an extraction, or a root canal and when the dentist entered the exam room you notice that he is wearing stained, tattered jeans and a shirt that looks like he slept in it? As he begins to work on you, he says, “I’m just going to hold an ice cube on your tooth to numb it…It works almost as well as a shot of Novocain.”