My Grooming Instructor Would Kill Me

I have written before about one of the dogs that I groom whose owner loves his curls and does not like when I blow dry his hair straight.

I usually groom him like I do all of my other dogs.

I have to blow dry his hair straight, because he gets hand scissored.

So, once I am finished with his groom, I always spritz him down with water to curl up his hair again.

Today he came in for his Christmas groom, but he was only a bath and trim feet, rear, and face.

As I was bathing him I was trying to figure out how to dry him without fluffing his hair up.

I didn't needed the hair straight today.

So, I didn't want to waste time HV drying him only to have to turn around and wet him down again to curl the coat back up.

I knew that if I HVed him like I normally do every dog, the HV would straighten out the coat.

I could have kennel dried him, but I didn't have time to wait for him to kennel dry, and I also don't like kennel drying dogs unless absolutely necessary.

Hmmmmmm...

So, I decided to go ahead and use the HV, only not the way I usually use it.

I normally place the end of the hose (without the pointy nozzle) right up against the skin and dry the hair from the skin out, straightening and drying the hair at the same time.

This time I held the nozzle about 12 inches from the dog, blowing the air at the coat while I rubbed my fingers through the coat to separate the hair to help it dry faster.

That is when I first had a Deja vu moment.

My old grooming instructor yelling at me.

"Stop rubbing that clean dog with your hand!!!! You are going to get the oils from your hand all over that dogs coat!!"

I had an unbelievable urge to turn around and see if she was behind me.

I used to get yelled at for petting the clean dogs all of the time.

I had another Deja vu moment while grooming this dog.

As the dog dried and the coat was looking more and more fluffy/wavy/ curly I was remembering the way my dogs would look when I used to kennel dry every dog.

Yes, I was grooming in the stone age when there were no high velocity dryers to dry dogs.

The dogs would completely kennel dry and then I would get them out, comb them up, clip or scissor them, and they would look like a curly mess when they went home.

Well, it was not quite bad as it sounds, but that is the way I was taught in Grooming School.

I didn't know any other way at the time.

I can't describe how hard this was for me. 

I wanted so badly to fluff that coat up the right way.

  The HV did the bulk of the drying, but he was still damp.

So, I finished up drying with my hand held dryer, still running my fingers through the coat.

This is before doing any brushing.

See teach, no oily coat!

Sorry, couldn't help it.

I always thought her yelling at me about oil in hands was a bunch of BS.

This is still too fluffy for the owner, but I know that after I put him back in his kennel and by the time the owner picked him up, he will look pretty curly again.

The head did fluff up a little more than I thought that it would after I brushed and combed it, but....

 ....once I scissored it, I did what I absolutely HATE seeing my customers do.

I rubbed his head.

I ran my fingers all through the top and sides of his head.

It was killing me. :/

But I did it....for the owner.

Only another groomer knows how I felt.

 So, once again he goes home curly.

I got to reminisce on how my grooms used to look a hundred years ago.

I have to admit, it was fun doing something a little different today.

Although I could have done without hearing my old grooming teacher in my head. :)