11/29/2019
Reasons why your groomer may be falling behind on schedule (aka "IS MY DOG DONE YET?")
1.) A dog pooped or peed in the cage and had to get re-bathed, blow dryed and brushed.
2.) Someone came in for a walk-in nail trim and then at the last minute decided they wanted nail polish too, or a**l glands or ear plucking or a foot trim, or just to tell you FiFi's life story.
3.) The phone won't stop ringing & they all want to come in tomorrow and it's a choice between answer it now, or return 47 voicemails at the end of the day
4.) An employee or a co-worker needed your help with a challenging dog or an emergency
5.) Your pet fought tooth-and-nail for the blow dryer and we can't cut dirty hair or wet hair so we have no choice other than to wait for your pet to dry before we finish its groom
6.) One of our clients forgot to mention their pet has fleas and now we are busy disinfecting every corner of the salon and the vacuum filter
7.) An owner just came in to tell us their pet had passed away and we just spent 20 minutes holding them and crying our eyes out
8.) It's near a holiday and everyone got the bright idea to call last minute and I'm being guilt-tripped into taking extra groom's that I definitely don't have time for
9.) Everyone and their cousin stopped in for a nail trim today because the whole family is going to be over for dinner for the holidays (5 nail trims can easily put u 30 minutes behind)
10.) My kid had a half day at school and I had to leave work to go get him and then bring him back here with me.
11.) I just realized it's been 24 hours since I've had solid food and I had to stop for a second and eat something before I pass out
12.) P**p. P**p everywhere, these dogs think I'm a janitor.
13.) The puppy that I have scheduled before your dog decided it doesn't want to get groomed today and is resisting the process so hard to the point where it's put me behind
14.) Someone scheduled a large dog haircut (4 hrs) in a small dog spot (usually 2 hrs)
15.) I got bit pretty bad and had to doctor myself up, now I'm moving slower than usual as the gauze makes it hard to hold my clippers
16.) An owner lied and said their dog was not matted or aggressive (all the regrets on squeezing them in) now 2 hours is turning into 3 hours and you're still not even done and you have no skin left on your knuckles now
17.) Malfunction of equipment certainly happens from time to time and puts us behind, especially when that "never been groomed 6 month old large breed dog" donkey kicks your clippers out of your hand across the room. Anyone have a spare pair of $200 Clippers laying around? No? Dang it.
18.) Chances are your groomer picked up extra hours and even came in on their day off this holiday season. With ours being a very physical job, many groomers develop back problems and carpal tunnel and wrist issues and neck pain: your groomer might just be moving a little slower than usual today because they HURT!
19.) A pet parent came back early before we were finished with the groom, and their pet got so excited and so Wiggly that it took 30 minutes for it to calm down so we could finish our job.
20.) Someone dropped off their pet 30 minutes late, but we didn't want to miss out on our Commission so we agreed to still groom the dog even though it means putting us behind for the rest of the day
Mostly we are not on schedule because we are human beings and not robots, and we work on moving targets that don't even speak the same language as us ( We have to be super careful not to injure your pet while it is in our care). We have bodily functions and we get sore and hungry, we stop to help out our coworkers and when s*** hits the fan the last thing we want to hear is how long we've had your dog for. WE KNOW. Most of us get paid per dog, trust us we definitely want to return your pet in a timely fashion and move on to the next appointment ( we are commission-based so the longer we take on your pet the less our hourly average is) BUT rushing us while we have sharp objects in our hands and a moving Target on our table only causes more stress and rushing us does not create a safe environment for your pets.
I created this post so that maybe pet owners would start to see us as human beings. Many pet parents have no idea what goes on at the salon once they drop their pet off, so please share this so that our profession can be better understood by the general public.
