When I was starting a private behavior practice, I had already trained two working dogs for my municipal animal control agency. I knew dogs. I knew training. To broaden the scope of my services, I spent a great deal of time learning about behavior modification.
Dog trainers are always on the look–out for dog groomers they can recommend to clients. Groomers are part of a necessary professional care team for many dog owners and fill a need that a dog trainer cannot.
Working with a dog trainer is usually a temporary part of an owner’s life, while working with a groomer is a relationship that can extend life–long.
From my experience, dogs have varying sensitivities to human touch. I say this after almost 40 years of handling between 20 and 30,000 dogs. Some dogs don’t like being petted. Some dogs don’t seek physical affection (I owned one for almost 15 years).
“Michell, I work in a very busy shop with lots of groomers, bathers and dogs. It is fairly chaotic. I work hard to keep my dogs under control and comfortable at all times, but I struggle. I know it is possible because when I watch videos the dogs are calm and they just stand there. I am so tired of wrestling with dogs all day long. I can’t get help from my co-workers because they let the dogs do anything they want. Do you have any advice on how to get my dogs to cooperate?”
Through Behavioral Training
Welcoming puppies into the grooming salon is a fun time for new pet parents. It’s exciting for you as a groomer, too, but it can also be a challenge and a headache.
Pavlov is a name well known in the field of psychology but almost nothing about his work is known. At best, you may know that his most famous experiment was to ring a bell and then give a dog a piece of food. He traced the physiological reflexes associated with food – salivation, reduction in heart rate, etc.
Behavior Clips
Many of your clients need training services and ask you to help them find a qualified trainer. Trainers that come to your salon may solicit that kind of recommendation. They will undoubtedly sell themselves in the best light possible – an understandable and normal thing to do. This is where it gets interesting.
Adding training services specifically for the grooming experience is an extremely easy and profitable addition to grooming salons. Simple training services offer benefits for the dogs, their owners, and the grooming staff. Dog trainers and veterinarians are consistently looking to refer clients to salons that are able to offer dogs the benefit of a low-stress experience. Becoming such a salon is easier than it sounds.
The last 30 years of dog training lore revolves around the connection between wolves and dogs. You can buy 100 books that prattle about dogs being descended from wolves; animals that voluntarily live in groups, called packs. This perspective invariably assumes that dogs are likewise “pack animals”. The underlying implication is that dogs possess the same wolf-like ability to live in harmony with their own kind.
There is nothing worse in a full day of grooming than being bitten by a client’s dog. Having to deal with dogs that do not enjoy grooming is par for the course but being bitten is oftentimes rare, painful, and can set you back for hours, if not days.
As groomers, I feel like we are excellent animal wranglers. Collectively, we’ve managed to get more things done to dogs in the name of hygiene than anyone else.
Behavior Clips
Here are a few “odds and ends” of training advice that can be shared with your clients or used in your everyday life:
Training for veterinary care, grooming, and handling procedures can greatly reduce stress, and make the job easier for all involved. Target training is widely used in zoos, aquariums, and with domesticated animals of all species. Animals can learn to hold their nose to a target while having blood drawn, and during other veterinary procedures.