Embarrassing Moment

At least that is what I am going to call it, because it makes me feel better than calling it one of the stupidest moments of my grooming career.

I could blame it on a brain fart....but it wasn't a sudden thing.

I could blame it on old age....but I am really not THAT old yet.

I could blame it on the fact that I don't always read directions....that sounds good...only this one could fall under the common sense category.

I like to think that I have a pretty good amount of common sense, but sometimes stupidity takes over.

Okay, enough of that.

I'll call it what it is...stupid...stupid....dumb....stupid.

What the heck am I rambling on about?

Do I really have to tell you?

(head hitting the top of the desk)

Okay, I will tell you, just on the off chance that there is a groomer out there as clueless as me.

I am really hoping that there is at least one.

It would make me feel so much better.

Bare with me a minute.

Maybe if I explain from the beginning, I won't sound so stupid...maybe....

 I discovered this clipper about 10 or so years ago.

I don't really remember how I found out about it.

I think I saw it talked about on a groomers forum that I was reading at the time.

I loved this clipper from the first time that I ever used it.

I loved it for shaving faces, feet, tummy's and pads of feet.

It was also great to use around puppy's, because it was so quite.

I also loved that it had two batteries, so I always had a battery ready and charged to use.

 When my first Wahl Arco Cordless clipper died...

...truth be told, it hit the floor one too many times, and blew up.

Anyway, my next Cordless clipper was a Wahl Chromado.

I loved this clipper too.

Actually I liked it more, because I felt that it was a better made clipper.

The only thing that I didn't like was that there were no batteries to swap out. 

Once the charge ran out, it would take about 20 - 30 minutes to get a full charge.

Okay, wait a minute.

I can already hear some of you yelling at me.

Some of you may have already figured out what my stupid moment was.

I have been using the Wahl Chromado for about 8 years or more now.

I have worn about three of them out.

I use this clipper just as much as my corded clipper.

About 6 months ago my latest Chromado started dying.

So I bought another cordless.

Only I didn't buy another Chromado, or a Bravura. (which I had been reading a lot of good things about)

I went back to the Arco SE.

I liked that it had two batteries.

The problem was that I forgot why I didn't buy another one before.

I remembered real quick.

 They just don't hold up as well as the Chromado does.

The one pictured is my newest one.

It is only six months old.

I had to tape it up because it started to come apart at the seams.

The batteries are already starting to hold less and less charge.

I will continue to use it until it totally dies.

But, I needed a new cordless clipper.

I waited till I went to Groom Expo.

I wanted to hold and feel the Bravura, and decide whether I wanted to buy another Chromado, or try the Bravura.

I went to the Wahl Booth to check out the Bravura.

As I was holding it to feel how it felt in my hand, and turning it on to see how quite it was, a Wahl Representative came up to ask if I had any questions.

Here is where the embarrassing moment comes in.

I was talking to him about how much I liked the Chromado over the Arco, but I didn't like having to wait for it to recharge.

(Now, I have to stop and take a moment to say that that representative was very nice, and in no way tried to make me feel as stupid as I was about to feel.)

He asked me why I waited for the clipper to charge, and why didn't I just plug the cord into it.

(Boy, this is harder to write than I thought it would be....stupid..stupid)

Guess what came out of my mouth after he asked me that question.

"There is a cord to plug into the clipper?"

"I don't remember an extra cord coming with the clipper."

The representative open his mouth to answer me, and in that second....before he uttered a word...

...Ping!

Somewhere in my brain the answer popped into my head.

The cord from the charger... 

..can also be plugged into the bottom of the cordless clipper...

....and can be used while the clipper is charging!!

BANG!  BANG!!  BANG!!

Sorry, that was my head banging against my desk top.

10 years!!

Ten years I have been using these clippers and it NEVER dawned on me that the stupid cord that went into the charger could be plugged into the clipper so that you could continue using it while it is charging.

Please, please, please tell me that I am not the only one.

Anyone???

No????

Just me, right?

Of course, if I had taken the time to at least skim the directions that come with the clipper, maybe I would have known this a long time ago.

Oh come on...who reads the directions that come with their clipper?

Anyway, after my stupid moment, I bought a Bravura.

I really like it.

It is very quite.

There is only one problem....yes, of course I have a problem.

It is the on/off button.

It is RIGHT where I put my thumb when I am clipping.

It only takes a very light touch to turn the clipper on and off.

Want to guess how many times that I turn that sucker off while I am in the middle of clipping?

 I'll get over it.

I just have to train myself to hold the clipper a little differently.

I am already getting better...I only turn it off once or twice while clipping now. :/

I do like it, and I do recommend the Bravura to other groomers.

Okay, this post is done.

That was painfully embarrassing.

But, maybe there is a groomer out there like me and this post will help them.

What will this post do for the rest of the groomers who read it?

Maybe give them a good laugh...:)

Happy Grooming, MFF

Scissoring Left Handed

I am left handed.

As many left handed people know, we spend our lives adapting to a right handed world.

My mother was left handed.

I say 'was' because when she was going to Catholic school, the Nuns tied her left hand behind the chair to force her to write right handed.

To this day she writes with her right hand.

When I was in school, I was one of only two kids in my glass that were left handed.

I didn't really think a lot about it back then.

If I ran into trouble doing things left handed I would just switch to right handed.

That is what I did when I went to Grooming School.

My grooming kit came with right handed scissors.

I was told that they would try to get me left handed scissors, but I didn't want to fall behind in the class waiting for lefty scissors. (which never came by the way)

In a way, it was already natural to scissor right handed.

I  had already been using scissors in my right hand, at school and at home, because they would never cut when I tried with my left hand.

So for the last 28 years I have been scissoring dogs with my right hand.

I have always been on the look out for nice left handed scissors so that I could scissor both left handed and right handed.

I did buy a pair about 22 years ago, but did not like them once I tried to use them.

I was also still working on my right handed scissoring skills, and starting over with my left hand seem really daunting at the time.

For the last few years I have been looking at left handed shears at Groom Expo and Intergroom.

There really are not a lot to pick from.

I wasn't crazy about a lot of them either.

The other thing that bothered me was investing money in a pair of scissors that would be useless if I failed to teach myself to scissor left handed.

The last day at Groom Expo last year I found a pair of scissors that could be used in either hand.

They would be perfect, because I could scissor with them right handed if left handed didn't work out.

I also liked the feel of them.

The only problem was that I had already spent my limit, so I waited till this year.

 I bought one straight and one curved at Groom Expo this year.

They are shorter than I like to use, but they did not make them any longer.

Friday I decided to try them on this little Yorkie.

He is a simple clipdown #5F.

So I pulled out the scissors to scissor his face.

OMG it felt so strange!

I felt like I didn't have any control over the scissors.

I am naturally left handed, this should come easy, right?

Well, it didn't.

I felt like I was moving in super slow motion.

I don't remember it being so hard when I was in Grooming School.

I don't remember taking so long to scissor.

I don't remember feeling like I couldn't make the scissors do what I wanted.

I felt like I couldn't cut a straight line to save my life.

I was scared to death scissoring around the ears.

I felt like I couldn't even hold the ear right in my right hand.

I thought... was this what it was like when I first started grooming and I just don't remember?

 I think that I even scared the dog.

He looks scared doesn't he?

I am sure that he was picking up on my unease.

I have been grooming him every 5 weeks for a long time now.

I am sure that if he could talk, he would have asked me what the heck did I think I was doing.

Scissoring around the feet did not feel as strange.

But, I was still going super slow.

Scissoring the back leg felt really awkward.

I felt like I could not get the scissors to do and cut what I wanted.

My hand would suddenly jerk the scissor cutting more than I wanted.

I did not mean to scissor this chunk of hair out of the leg.

The scissors did it!

They had a mind of their own..I swear!

Thankfully I was able to fix it with my right hand. :)

 There was one other thing.

Can you see it in this picture?

Every time that I put the scissors down to comb or brush, I would pick them up and use the wrong finger to hold the scissor.

I also could not get my thumb to sit right.

It kept sliding too far through the hole, causing me to lose control of the scissor.

Needless to say, I only scissored one side of the dog left handed.

I could have scissored up a couple of Yorkies in the time I spent on that one side. :/

It felt so good to pick up my scissors in my right hand.

I am going to keep trying...at least once a day...if I have the time.

I will have to go back to the exercises that I learned in Grooming School to strengthen my left hand and fingers.

I am going to try really hard not to give up.

My goal is to post about a dog that I scissored entirely with my left hand.

Maybe by this time next year? :p

Happy Grooming, MFF

Rescue Round-up

Finally getting this post up.

 

Last Sunday morning at Groom Expo was the Rescue Round-up.

We had to check-in at 7:30am.

All of the groomers gathered at the holding/bathing area.

After we signed in, we each picked a number.

Then we had to match our number to the dog with the same number.

The dogs were from several different rescue groups.

Sadly, the group that my dog was from did not stay around so that we could ask questions about the dogs, like all of the other groups did. 

I am not going to name the rescue group.

I don't want anyone getting mad at me, and blaming me for bad mouthing, but I did not like the way this particular rescue group did things.

  Anyway, my dog turned out to be the dog in the worst shape.

The organizer asked if I wanted to change to another dog, but I said no.

How could you say no to a dog that so badly needed grooming.

 

I really wanted to groom this dog.

  After we received our dogs, we walked up to the Trade Show room to set up our grooming areas and get our tub times.

The groomer next to me had a cute little Pom that was full of undercoat.

We were guessing that my little guy was around 10 months to a year old, never been groomed, and an unnuetered male.

The person organizing the rescues, the dogs, and the bath times was Cheryl Purcell.

An award winning groomer that I have been watching in grooming competitions for a long time.

She did a phenomenal job!

After I got my dog, I asked one of the Judges about bathing the dog first.

She took one look at the dog and told me that I would have to clip it first.

I told her that I don't normally preclip and didn't want to now.

She told me to talk to Cheryl.

It would be up to Cheryl whether I would be one of the first three groomers in the tub.

Thankfully Cheryl agreed with me.

She bathes all of her dogs first too. :)

We were also told that because there were 15 dogs to be bathed that we would only have 15 minutes to bathe the dog.

Normally, that would not have been a problem, but this dog needed more than one bath.

I have to admit that I was a little panicked about only having 15 minutes to bath this hairy, matted, male urine smelling dog.

You better believe that it took every second of those 15 minutes to get this guy clean.

I only scrubbed once, but I scrubbed the heck out of him.

I used Best Shot shampoo and Creme Rinse.

Thankfully there was no time limit on the drying time.

I have no idea how long it took me to dry him.

I am guessing about 20- 25 minutes.

I was trying to blow the mats as far away from his body as possible, so that I could get a longer blade through him.

 He was a little scared of the water at first but quickly accepted it.

He freaked at first with the dryer also, so I wrapped him with a towel, tucked his head under my arm, and started drying one of his back legs.

By the time I was half of the way through the back leg, he was accepting the dryer.

He was turning out to be a really sweet little guy.

He did not want to stand on the table at first, so I started clipping him laying down.

Unfortunately, they had cameras and lights all set up in front of the stage for an interview with a special guest, about the rescue dogs.

So my son was not able to get many pictures of the other groomers.

Here are the pictures that he did get.

 

These are only some of the other groomers that were competing in the Rescue Round-up.

I was able to get a #3F blade under the mat.

He was so good about having all of that hair clipped off.

At one point he looked pretty choppy, but with a second go-over with the blade, and some scissoring, he smoothed out pretty nicely.

Look at that face that was hidden under all of that hair.

I love that face.

I am sure that you can guess that I was falling in love with this dog.

He was a kisser.

I worked on him all of the way up to "scissors down".

Time for the Judging.

He was very good about the Judges touching him.

He liked everyone.

Time to relax and wait for the Judges to finish deciding first, second, and third place winners.

My little guy and I took 2nd place.

Mary Miller took 3rd place.

This was her first competition ever.

She was very nervous, but she did great!

Nicole Kallish took 1st place.

Her guys back end was all chewed up and had a lot of bald spots.

She came up with the clever idea to do a Lion cut on this dog.

She also did a great job.

ALL of the groomers did a great job!

Now this is where the story turns a little sad for me.

As I said before, most of the rescue people stayed while the dogs were groomed.

They were very happy with what the groomers did for their rescue dogs.

The rescue that brought my dog and five other dogs did not stay.

They were not there after the competition either.

I waited with my dog for about 30 minutes after the competition for the rescue person to show up.

I didn't have the heart to put him back in the kennel.

I had my son take the pee covered blanket that was in the kennel out, and he took the kennel into the bathing area and washed it out.

Then we took a towel that I had with my groom supplies and put it in the kennel.

 I still did not want to put him back, so I took him to the doggy playground.

It didn't take him any time to mark his territory. :/

 He wanted to play with my dogs, but I did not know enough about him to let them play together.

So I played with him.

He was so playful.

While I waited for the rescue person to show up, there was another person waiting that really liked the dog that I groomed and wanted to ask about adopting him.

There were also several other people hanging around the other dogs wanting to adopt some of them.

When the rescue person finally showed up, I waited for the other person that was interested in my dog to talk to the woman about adopting him.

They talked for a few minutes then she walked away and wished me luck.

Okay, what was that all about?

The rescue person then walked up to the other people waiting by the other dogs.

They talked for a few minutes then all of them left.

What the heck was going on?

These people wanted to adopt.

Now it was my turn to talk about this dog.

I didn't need another dog.

I didn't do this competition to adopt another dog.

I wanted to help this dog get adopted.

But, this dog had really gotten under my skin, and the other woman had walked away.

Now, this is where it gets tough.

I am not knocking rescue groups, but I truly believe that sometimes their rule get in the way of a dog getting a good home.

This rescue would not take names.

It was first come first serve.

Once they put the dog in the adoption area, the first person that askes about adopting him would get the chance.

Even if I had followed her back to the rescue, I was supposed to bring everyone living in my house with me to meet the dog.

It would have taken me 3 hours round trip to go home and get everyone.

Then I would also take the chance that by the time I got back, the dog would already be adopted.

A freshly groomed, sweet young dog.

Yep, he would have been adopted by the time I got back.

Then, I was also to bring all of my dogs to meet this dog.

This unneutered male dog, that did not have all of its shots yet.

Sorry, I don't agree with that one.

Not all dogs take to each other right away.

I have a couple that were not crazy about each other at first, but are great together now.

Plus, I don't agree with bring my dogs into a rescue group environment.

These are just my personal feelings.

I can't tell you how much it hurt to hand that dog back to the rescue person. :(

I try to tell myself that because of all of their rules, and the fresh grooming that he got, he got a good home.

Someone was getting a very sweet dog.

I hope that he got a good forever home.

I would do this competition again...no matter how much it kills me.

Kudos to the groomers who volunteer their time to grooming rescue dogs.

I am afraid that I would become a hoarder if I groomed rescue dogs.

I want to give them all forever homes. lol

I knew that writing this post was going to upset me.

I started writing it a couple of times in the past couple days.

I hope that he is sleeping in a nice warm house with very caring owners.

God Bless ALL of the rescue, neglected, and unwanted dogs out there!

I am going to go hug my dogs now......

Happy Grooming, MFF