30/09/2026
Vale Claude 🖤 We have a very empty house tonight.
The dog that taught me how to groom the hard dogs was my own.
Our Claudey🤍
Claude was our Portuguese Water Dog, and we were his fifth home in under two years. We got a very broken boy, a boy that didn’t trust, a boy that bit first and asked questions… well never lol and loving him taught me lessons that have followed me through my entire career and eventually into Moggies.
He taught me patience. Real patience.
He taught me to look inward when something wasn’t working instead of immediately asking what was “wrong” with the dog. To slow down. To change my approach. To give them time. To pay attention to the little things they were trying to tell us.
He’s the reason I have such a soft spot for the hard dogs now.
The scared ones. The bitey ones. The ones with a list of warnings attached to their name. The ones who have been labelled difficult or naughty when sometimes they’re just asking us, in the only way they know how, to listen.
Claude taught me that a successful groom doesn’t always mean a perfect haircut. Sometimes success is one more nail than last time. A little less fear. A little more trust. Sometimes it means stopping altogether and trying again another day.
We lost our boy today, but I know I’ll carry what he taught me for the rest of my career.
Thank you for teaching me, Claude. We will miss you forever. 🖤
