It Was My Fault....

....apparently.

 It is a little late in the game now, but I wish that I had started keeping a notebook with things that customers have said to me over the years.

If I had, I most likely would not believe half of the things that I wrote down.

Today was a first.

My daughter went up front to take in a customer whose dog I have groomed twice before.

The owner knew that her dog was in bad shape, but it was our fault that her dog was matted.

It wasn't because she had to wait a long time for an appointment.

It wasn't because we had left her dog too long last time.

It wasn't because the dog got caught in the rain.

It wasn't because the kids hadn't brushed the dog.

It wasn't because the dog was sick.

It wasn't any of the normal reasons that I hear all of the time.

Why did she think her dog was in bad shape?

Because.......................we aren't open at night to answer her phone call to make an appointment for her.

Oooookaaaaay. :/

Here he is.

He is a sweet dog.

I like him.  :)

For the last two groomings, he has been getting a full hand scissor cut.

I have been scissoring a an inch off all over.

Today he is too matted.

My fault.....apparently.

We bathed him, and HVed the mats away from his skin.

 The mats came away from the skin, but they were still pretty tight.

His hair is not the type of hair that lets go of the mat easily.

 On top of that, this dog does not care for the mats being brushed out at all.

So the owner was told that I would have to use whatever blade would go between the mats and the skin safely.

I tried the 5/8HT blade first.

The blade was going under the mats, but it was also pulling at the mats, causing the hair to be clipped too close in some places and leaving holes in the coat.

Now I would have to repair these holes in the dogs coat.

So I stopped and switched to a #3F blade.

The #3F blade glided very nicely between the mats and the skin, and left a nicer finish that would require less scissoring.

With a little scissoring and blending in the holes that the 5/8HT blade caused, the clip didn't look too bad.

Even though it was apparently my fault that this dog became matted, I think that he looks nice with the shorter cut.

This owner did have one other comment to add to my imaginary notebook.

This was the end of the conversation that my daughter had with the owner when she dropped off her dog.

My daughter:  "Would you like us to call when he is done?"
Owner:  "No. I have a lot to do today. I will be back at 3:30. (9 am appointment) What time do you close?"
My daughter:  "We close at 4pm today."
Owner:  "So that means I have to pick him up by 4:00 ?"
My daughter:  ........................."Yep."

She picked her dog up a 4:10.

Oh, and she made her next appointment before she left, for 9 weeks.

Happy Grooming, MFF

Tuesday's Tip #39 Check-In

I messed up the other day.

I did something that I am always giving my husband a hard time about.

Now I can't say anything to him.

So, what is it that I am always giving him a hard time about?

Reading the file cards before he waits on the customer.

What was that?

We still use file cards!?

Yeeeeees, we still use those darn file cards.

My husband hates computers, or the computer hates him.

Actually I think it is a mutual feeling between the two of them.  :)

I am working on putting everything on the computer.

I am checking out a program that I think even he can work with....I hope.

Anyway, my husband used to be really good about reading the customers file, and then talking to them about what they wanted done with the dog.

That was back when we were building the business.

Now that most of are customers a regulars, he has gotten into the bad habit of just saying "You want the same as usual?", or "do you want us to do the same as last time?"....without looking at the file.

The other problem is, that the customers just say yes even if something was different last time.

Most of the time there is no problem.

Most of the customers do get the same groom over and over again.

Most of the time the problems come at the change of the seasons, because a lot of my customers get longer clips in the winter and shorter clips in the summer.

So what did I do the other day?

I had a long time customer come with her two Havanese.

The one I have been grooming off and on during his 'Show' career.

His owner retired him from showing last year.

After his last show, his Mom brought him in and decided that she wanted to shorten up his hair, but not too much.

She was not ready to lose the long hair.

Even this cut was a little shocking for her.

The owner does not bring him in very often.

She likes to do a lot of the grooming herself.

When the coat starts to get out of hand, she brings him in to me.

When she brought him in the other day, I didn't bother to look at his file.

Even when she started to tell me that I didn't cut him evenly last time, I didn't pick up and look at the file.

I thought that she was just being a little picky.

She has always been one of my knit-picky customers, but she has always been very nice about it.  :/

She also had her new Havanese with her.

This was the first time I was meeting the new dog.

She was now a year old.

The owner had been showing her also, but has decided to stop because she is such a nervous thing.

When I got him on the table and could look him over, I though 'wait a minute!'

There is no way I chopped this dog up like this the last time.

Now I must stop here to say that, pre-children I would have remembered the last grooming without looking at the file, but since my kids have sucked all the memory out off my body, I don't remember anything anymore.

Even standing there looking at this dog, I could not remember the last grooming, until....

I looked at that darn file.

As soon as I started reading what I had written, I remembered.

The owner had tried to shape the legs herself before the last grooming.

On top of that she had also been chopping out mats.

I had even made a note that I told her I could not get all of the choppy look out without taking him as short as some of the places she had chopped up.

Now if I had looked at that darn file when she came in, I would have been able to remind her that she was the one who chopped up the legs, and that I was not able to get them evened up again.

I felt like a fool.

I couldn't believe that I did something that I am always giving my husband a hard time about.

It sure came back to bite me in the butt.

So once again I tried to fix the owners groom job.

 Did I go back up to and remind the owner that the uneven legs were her fault and not mine?

No.

I let it go.

I had my chance.

I blow it.

Plus, so far my husband didn't know about what I did.

I am not that stupid.

Why would I let him know that I did the same thing I that I give him a hard time about?

I would never hear the end of it.

So, my tip for the day is simple.

Keep good notes on every grooming.

AND, most important of all!

Read those notes before you take the dog in for grooming.

I have to get my files on the computer so that I can make notes for myself and my husband to look at before we take in a customer. 

Time to move into the 21st century. :)

Happy Grooming, MFF

Our Day...Before and Afters

This was our day today in pictures.

 My daughter started out the day with this little one, who came in for his appointment one day early.

The owner had been chopping on the coat and he was a little matted.

This little guy has a horrible cottony coat that shows every scissor cut.

Jessica did a great job, and the owner loved the cut.

I started my day off with this sweet lady.

I would say that my backboard was useless with her.

At least she stood long enough for me to take the finish picture. :)

This little lady was groomed by Jess.

This is my 'I refuse to stand up' dog.

He also growls from the moment his feet hit the tub, till I pick him up to put him back in his kennel after he is finished.

At least he stands for the bath. :)

This little lady and the dog below are sisters.

They are two of my daughters favorite dogs to groom.

What a happy little lady she is.

I have been grooming this little lady for a long time.

She is so shy.

God help you if you pull a tiny, little snag in her hair.

This little girl can squeal so loud your ears ring for half an hour.

My daughter has been grooming this little guy since he was a puppy.

His Mom drops him off before work and picks him up after.

He stays awake all day, and never lays down.

He just watches everything all day.

He never barks.

We have never heard him bark.

His Mom says she can't believe it, because that is all he does at home.

He's back!

My big, hairy beast.

My big, hairy, 'I don't like to stand anymore than a minute at a time.'

Did I mention that he is hairy?

And that he doesn't like to stand up?

  I told my daughter that she cut her customers head off.

She complained to me that she did not have enough room to move back and take pictures of her dogs.

At least she cut the head off in the same place for both the before and the after picture.  :)

This old lady has been chewing herself up.

So after I finished her I had to put the e-collar on her right away.  :(

Another one of my daughters favorites.

I have posted about this Sheltie before.

She is the one that had all of her feathering hacked up by a groomer that didn't even ask the owners if it was okay to trim the feathering.

She had not ever had her feathering trimmed.

I don't believe that it will ever grow back.

I have been grooming her for awhile now, and the hair hasn't even started to grow back.

So sad.

My daughter did not want to take pictures of this grooming, because the poor little thing has such a horrible coat due to medical issues.

I told her to take the picture because I think that she does a great job with what she has to work with.

Last but not least, my problem child.

He is still a work in progress, and boy was he in a mood today.

My arm still hurts.

I don't know if you can see it or not, but take note of what is written on his leash.

'Bad to the Bone'

No truer words have ever been spoken about a dog.

The thing is, you can't help but like him, because when he is not trying to eat you, he can be really sweet.  :/

I kept him for my last dog of the day, because I don't have any energy left after grooming him.

That was our day.

How was yours?

Happy Grooming, MFF

"The Groom was Perfect Last Time!"

I guess that most groomers would love to heard their customers say that.

And if the customer was saying "Your grooms are always perfect," that would be wonderful to hear.

It is those two words, 'last time', that get me.

The first thing I feel like asking is, "Oh, only the last grooming?"

"Were all of the other grooms bad?"

Those two words also mean that the groom is not going to be 'perfect' this time.

The customer that made this statement is a nice customer.

I am also sure that she did not mean anything by her statement, other than to tell me that I got all of her instructions exactly right last time, because most of the time she wants to talk to me about one little thing that was not quite right the last time.

Sometimes she knows exactly what she wants to change and other times she is not sure, so I am not always sure if I am getting the groom right.

The funny thing is, I remember the last groom.

The owner came in and wanted to talk to me the last time.

We talked about the fact that the owner didn't think that the head and tail was balanced after the last grooming.

I really don't get upset when customers tells me things like this, as long as they are not rude about it.

It does amaze me when I have customers come in and try to tell me how to groom their dog.

I don't mean when they come in and tell me what they want done.

I mean the owners that come in and proceed to tell me how to groom their dog.

They will throw out a blade number that turns out to be no where near the length that they are describing.

It's funny, my husband gets upset when customers tell me how to groom their dogs.

He can't understand how I can laugh and shake my head after they leave.

I can't explain it either.

I just find it funny when I have an owner who thinks they can tell me how to do my job.

Most owners could care less how I groom their dog as long as I give their dog the cut they want.

I do have one customer that I only recently started grooming her dog.

I have groomed the dog twice now.

The first grooming, the owner kept me in the lobby for 30 minute interrogating me.

She was happy and cheery and pleasant, but you better believe that all of her questions were an interrogation.

I don't doubt for a second that if I had not answered her questions to her satisfaction that she would have been out the door.

The owner also went over her dog with a fine tooth comb when she came to pick her dog up.

I have to say, I don't think that I ever had a customer go over a dog like she did hers.

She picked up all of the feet, looked at the pads and toes.

She picked up the hair in places on the legs to make sure that all of the hair was cut evenly.

She checked the ears.

She checked the eyes.

She had me take the dog back to cut around the top of the eyes closer.

There was no more hair left over the eyes to cut.

I did check.

Really I did.

I combed the hair up, forward, back....there was nothing left to cut.

I took the dog back up and said,  "how is that?"

"Perfect!"

She made another appointment.

I have groomed the dog twice now and both times the owner has sat the dog on my counter and gone over her.

I wonder how many time I have to get the grooming right for her to stop that?

I will admit that the first time she went over her dog I was a little taken back by how thoroughly she went over the dog, right in front of me.

I do remember being a little perturbed by it.

I remember standing there thinking 'you have got to be kidding me.'

I really didn't get mad.

I don't know what I was feeling exactly, other than amazed, stunned, that really didn't just happen.

So anyway, this is the perfectly groomed dog....'last time.'

Isn't he cute?

This is his perfectly grown out cut.  :)

His Moms biggest concern is that the cut is done the way she wants it, but balanced at the same time.

She likes the body short.

The legs a little longer than the body.

Dome type head.

Ears neatened.

Sides of the face short and tight.

Leave the mustache.

Shave the top of the nose and blend down into the mustache so the hair will not stick up into the eyes.

Trim the tail to balance with the head.

Don't look too hard.

Remember it will not be perfect this time.

It is never 'perfect' two times in a row, or three, or four....

But that is okay, because the owner is nice when she tells me, "it wasn't quite right the last time."

So try to keep a chin up when a customer makes comments that they don't really intend to be mean.

Try to find the humor in it.

 If you don't, people will drive you insane.

Just do the best work you can.

We can not please everyone all of the time.

Groomers are only human, even though some customers think we are Magicians.

Happy Grooming, MFF