Too Much Information

Sometimes being a perfectionist and a groomer do not mix.

Now, I am not a perfectionist in everything that I do....thank God.

I am a perfectionist when it comes to grooming dogs.

I always go over my dogs a couple of times before I move on to the next one.

I will even get a dog back out and put them on my table again if I walk past their kennel and see something out of place.

Sometimes I have to say to myself; 'you're done! You have done the best you can, now put the dog away.'

(sorry about the quality of the pictures, my camera is acting up. Grrrrr )

This little girl came in today.

One of my customers lost their 15 year old dog earlier last year.

Today they brought in their new dog.

She is a Havanese mix.

She is 6 years old.

She had never been professionally groomed.

 The breeder is the only person that has ever cut her hair.

Her new owners did not want me to take much length off.

So I basically scissored her all over and tried to even out the coat from the breeders grooming.

She was really good and had a great coat to scissor.

I evened her up the best that I could without taking much length off.

Unfortunately, I could not even out the coat perfectly, because some places her hair was cut very short.

One of her back legs was much shorter then the other three.

There were chop lines on the neck and chest that I could not totally blend out.

 Her new owners want her ears to grow long. (of course)

But, they were very uneven and one ear was shorter than the other, so I had to take some length off of one so that they would grow out evenly.

The top of the nose had been clipped at one time so that will be sticking up for a while till his mustache grows back.

The owners liked the flat look on the top of the head of their other dog, but I had to explain to them that this dog has fluffy hair on the top of her head, that has a lot of cowlicks, making it difficult to get a smooth look to her head.

I have to say that I went on for about 10 minutes telling this dogs owners all of the above, and why the cut was not perfect.

At one point, during my long explanation, I looked over at the husband.

He was shaking his head with a smile on his face.

"I don't see anything that you are talking about," he said petting his dog.

"I think that she looks really good."

"I don't see anything wrong either," his wife added, smiling at me too.

"That is stuff that you see because you are the groomer, but I think that you did a great job, just like you always did with our other dog." she finished as I stood there and realized that I over did it again.

It is funny how some of your customers nit pick about everything, and find things wrong that aren't. Then other customers think that the groom is perfect even when you know that it isn't.

I took the extra time to show them those imperfections because I was sure that they were going to see them just like I did.

I have done this before, and almost always, the customer does not see what I see.

They think the I am the one being overly picky.

Oh well, at least they were happy with the groom, even if I wasn't. ☺

✂ Happy Grooming, MFF ✂