I think that one of the most challenging parts of a grooming career, no mater whether you are a new groomer, or a seasoned groomer, is understanding an owners instructions for how they want their dog to be groomed.
Some owners know exactly how they want their dogs groomed, and have no problem describing what they want.
Other dog owners like to leave it up to the groomer to groom their dog any way the groomer wishes as long as the dog is clean and cut short. lol
Some other dog owners you have to ask a million questions, and drag the answers out of them, to find out how they want their dog to look.
Then there are the dog owners that I had in the other day.
The owners that confuse the heck out of you.
Whenever I have an owner come in, especially with a new puppy, I listen to what they want done, or think that they want done, and then I describe to them exactly how I am going to groom their dog, giving them the opportunity to change something if they want.
This has always worked for me.
Till the other day.....
This 8 month old pup came for her first grooming.
Oh my gosh, isn't she darling?
She turned out to be the sweetest thing.
Great for the bath, the dryer, and the grooming.
Your dream puppy. :)
I listened to her owners instructions.
They seemed pretty clear.
She did not really want any length off of the body, but she did not like all of the messy hair on the pups legs, feet, and chest.
She also wanted the face cleaned up so that she could see her dogs eyes.
Seemed simple, right?
Until I described back to the owner exactly what I was going to do.
I told the owner that I would leave the hair on the dogs back, neaten up the hair on the underbelly and chest, shorten the hair on the legs and feet, and shape up the face.
I thought that I more or less repeated what she had just said to me.
I could tell right away that she didn't seem to like what I described.
I got the impression that the owner did not think what I described would make the dog look any different than it looked at the moment.
Some of the things she was saying made me feel like I had misunderstood her when she told me that she like the length on the pups body as it was.
The more we talked, the more I went back and forth feeling confused, to feeling like I was sure she would like what I described once she saw her dog done.
So, I ended up doing exactly what I described to the owner, with one added difference.
Even though I heard the owner say that she liked the length of hair on the body as it was, I also got the impression that she wanted some of it off, or neatened.
Soooo, after scissoring and neatening the entire outline of the dog, I also used my thinning shears on some of the fly away hair on the sides of the legs and the pups body.
That way the dog looked nice and neat without taking length off of the body.
I scissored the face up into proportion with the rest of the body, and neatened the ears.
There was only one problem.
I hated the way the ears looked.
If this pup were mine, I would handstrip, or shave the ears. (she has cute ears)
The hair on them was so thin and stringy, that they looked messy.
I decided to scissor the top 1/4 of the ear to the leather, leaving the long hair hanging down the middle of the ears. (almost like tassels)
I thought that it made her ears look neater without taking away the length that the owner wanted.
I would keep this little lady in a second.
What pleasure she was to groom.
I guess that I made the right decision.
The owner was happy.
This little pup is now on a 6 week schedule. :)
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