26/03/2025
💯👏🏻👏🏻❤️
At a time when it felt like the grooming industry was moving forwards, the same old us vs them argument rears its ugly head.
To me, grooming has always been a care role. Was it an easy industry to get into? Yes it was. Is it easy to open up a grooming business? Yes. Does the training you receive prepare you for the real world? Absolutely not.
I’ll be the first to put my hands up and admit that I opened up my salon after just completing my Level 2 qualification. I didn’t choose to progress to Level 3, mainly as to begin with I never meant for this to be a long term career. I simply wanted to groom my own dog.
As time has gone on and my business has grown, I realised there were so many gaps in my education. So many things I didn’t know or understand, I felt burnt out and frustrated. Now, I could sit here and blame the college I went to for not teaching me everything and moan about it, or I can make it my mission to fill in the gaps - which is exactly what I do.
I have spent uncountable hours and invested a significant amount of money in furthering my education. I’ve studied anatomy, behaviour, equipment maintenance, skin and coat care, the list goes on. If I don’t understand something, or if a process makes me feel uncomfortable from an ethical perspective, I will go out of my way to firstly understand the reasoning behind it and then ways on which we could improve it for the dog.
To me, it’s not about who holds the highest qualification as such. It’s about who is open to new ideas, who is honest about their limitations and is willing to learn.
How would you honestly feel if you went to a doctor and found out that they’ve done no further medical training since they passed their degree over 40 years ago? How confident would you be that they understand new medications or treatment methods now available?
I choose to be a restraint free, dog led groomer but that doesn’t mean I am better than a groomer who may use restraints on occasions but still treats the dog with compassion.
Some dogs cope in a conventional set up and some don’t. Neither are better than the other, providing the continued learning takes place and people are willing to adapt.
For me personally, the problem lies more with those who get into the industry because they think it’s an easy way to make money. The ones who are set in their ways and never willing to learn new things or adapt. The ones who are churning out dog after dog, trying to fit as many in as possible with no concern about how that dog is feeling.
Despite how easy it is to get into, grooming is not an easy job. We have to understand dermatology, behaviour and body language, biochemistry, laws and regulations, canine anatomy, disease and parasites, equipment maintenance and then of course the business side of things too. We are responsible for a living being and we all need to act that way.
But it’s not just the groomer who is responsible. As guardians, we owe it to our dogs to start asking more questions. Don’t pick a groomer simply based on price or location. Ask what training they’ve received, do they have a first aid qualification? Are they insured? When was the last time they took any courses or attended seminars etc? What made them get into grooming? And on the topic of pricing, running a grooming business is expensive and so if the price they’re giving you sounds too good to be true, then you have a right to suspect corners may be being cut and the standard of care being offered may not be as a high a level as it could be.
So lets drop the consent based vs conventional debate and instead come together on healing an industry that plays a vital part in a dogs wellbeing.
