Grooms That Scare Me

It's not the difficult dogs.

It's not the biters.

It's not the elderly dogs.

It is the drastic grooms.

What am I talking about?

I am talking about the grooms where an owner brings in a dog and wants to drastically change the way that you have been grooming the dog.

They want to change it to something that you know would look awful, or that they would not like it.

Or, a groom like I had today.

 Today was the second time grooming this dog.

The first groom was a heavy outline trim.

The owner did not want much hair taken off.

She was adamant about not cutting the dog too short the first time I groomed him.

So, imagine my surprise when my husband brought the dog into the grooming room today telling me that the owner wanted me to clip the dog and only leave 3/4 of an inch on the dog so that it would not look shaved.

What?!

She was so concerned about me taking too much off of the dog the last time.

 This dog did not have a single mat in his coat.

I must have asked my husband half a dozen times if he heard the owner right.

I asked my husband if he made sure that the owner realized exactly how much hair she was asking me to cut off.

He said yes.

I asked him if he made sure that the owners 3/4 of an inch was the same as a real 3/4 of an inch.

He said that he thought so.

Now I was making him second guess himself.

I just wanted to make sure that this owner really wanted that much hair off of her dog.

That her idea of 3/4 of an inch wasn't really 2 or 3 inches.

I worried the whole time that I was working on the dog.

  I still hesitated before I finally started clipping.

I started with a very long clip comb.

The green Stainless Steel comb from Wahl.

It kills me to see all of that long hair fall to the table.

I can't put it back on...that is the scary part.

 The green comb left more than an inch, so I moved on to the next comb.

 The Purple comb took a little more off.

It was closer to 3/4 of an inch.

I wasn't going to go any shorter than that.

I figured that if the owner wanted more off, that was no problem.

I could always take more off...I couldn't put it back on if she thought that I took her dog too short.

The whole time that I was scissoring the dog, I was hoping that I had done the right thing.

I did not want to end the week with a crying hysterical owner in my lobby.

I am ashamed to admit that I let my husband take the dog up to the owner.

After all, he was the one who talked to her about the cut in the first place, right?

I know, it was a chicken sh*t moment.

I was holding my breath and listening to see if I heard raised voices in the lobby.

I am not a total chicken sh*t, because I would have been the one to go up and smooth things over if the owner hated the cut.

I am always the peace maker. :/

Well, it turned out that I didn't need to make peace.

The owner really liked the length.

It was exactly what she wanted.

*sigh*

I am glad that I didn't take it  any shorter.

The week ended on a  good note. :)

Leaving for Intergroom tomorrow morning.

Hopefully I will have some nice pictures to post when I get back Monday.

I'll have pictures of Creative Grooming, and Creative Grooming on cats too!

Happy Grooming, MFF