Life Archives - Page 23 of 25 - Groomer to Groomer

The Art of Setting Expectations

By Daryl Conner / November 2, 2015 / 1 minute of reading

Sometimes a customer is unhappy with your grooming. In my experience, a huge percentage of the time this is due to the pet owner having an expectation of what the end result of the groom is going to look like, which is different from what the experienced groomer knows the pet will look like. Here is an example: A customer comes in with a 9 month old Shih Tzu puppy for its first groom. The dog has not been brushed or combed since birth and is encased in some very impressive matts and tangles.

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Will Your Assets Last Through Retirement?

By Michael Garvin / October 19, 2015 / 1 minute of reading

The average person buys a dozen cars in their lifetime. But unlike cars, you only get one retirement. How do you know if you’ll have the right plan? You want an income plan you can “drive” the rest of your life. To make smart choices, you need to take advantage of an advanced retirement modelling approach—a way for you to sit in the driver’s seat of your own retirement…

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Grooming Industry Icon Passes Away

By Barkleigh Productions / December 22, 2014 / 1 minute of reading

Jerry Schinberg, one of the most influential people in the history of the grooming industry, passed away the morning of December 20th. Jerry founded the longest running grooming show (All American), created GroomTeam USA and was the originator of creative dog grooming

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The Clock is Tick, Tick, Ticking

By Kathy Hosler / December 3, 2014 / 1 minute of reading

“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you won’t do anything with it,” says M. Scott Peck the author of The Road Less Traveled.

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Happy Feet

By Daryl Conner / September 22, 2015 / 1 minute of reading

Groomers do a lot of their work standing up, and there is a good bit of walking involved in our work as well. Did you know that with every mile we walk we experience 200,000 to 300,000 pounds of stress on our feet? Considering that in our business we are often carrying a dog when we walk, you can multiply those numbers.

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Burnout

By Tip Campbell / November 5, 2014 / 1 minute of reading

Next to “explosive diarrhea” and “matted doodle,” burnout is one of the most feared phrases in a groomer’s vocabulary. Yet, at some point in their career, all groomers must deal with burnout.
We feel it coming on. At first, we just feel tired. Then, we notice that the little things start to bother us.

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Showing Off

By Kathy Hosler / September 8, 2015 / 1 minute of reading

Groom Texas Joins the Houston World Series of Dog Shows
“The Houston World Series of Dog Shows is the longest continuous AKC Cluster Show in the country,” says Cluster Coordinator, Tom Pincus. “This is our thirty-eighth year. We had an entry of 12,500 dogs over the five day show.”

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The “Whole” Pet

By Daryl Conner / August 25, 2014 / 1 minute of reading

The Dirt on Holistic Grooming
The word “holistic” is currently a bit of a buzzword in the American language. It brings up connotations of woo-woo-crunchy-granola-touchy-feely-New Age feel-goodism. But what exactly does it mean and how does it pertain to the grooming industry?

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Personal Safety For The Mobile Groomer

By Mary Oquendo / August 21, 2015 / 1 minute of reading

As I was driving down the aptly named Long Mountain Road just after another snowstorm, I looked to the side and half jokingly thought, “If I drive off the road and land in the ravine, I won’t be found until next spring.” The next thought that crossed my mind was, “ Oh crap, if I drive off the road and land in the ravine, I won’t be found until next spring.”

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The Groom Reaper

By Kathy Hosler / June 3, 2014 / 1 minute of reading

Little Sammy Jo was one of my favorites, and I had been grooming her since she was a puppy. When she came in ‘that day’ I felt marble-like lumps in her throat area that were never there before.

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Professional Groomers’ History Project

By Teri DiMarino and Shirlee Kalstone / August 3, 2015 / 1 minute of reading

A few issues ago, I devoted this column to the subject of the history of the professional grooming industry. Shirlee Kalstone and I have collectively wondered why no one has ever attempted to document how far the art of grooming has advanced in the past few decades from their modest beginnings. Shirlee recalls years ago in the mid-1970’s, while at the All-American Grooming Show in Chicago, that she was shocked to read a blurb in one of the Chicago papers that in the scheme of things “dog groomers were placed slightly above garbage collectors” who were on the bottom of their list.

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Ergonomics

By Mary Oquendo / July 31, 2015 / 1 minute of reading

I decided many years ago that I wanted to be that old lady that zip lines, jumps out of an airplane, and dances to the wee hours of the morning. But, in order to be in a position to do so, I have found it will be far easier to maintain my good health now than trying to repair decades of damage later on.

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