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The holidays are going to be here before you know it, and don't you want your pet looking and feeling awesome going into the holiday season and into the new year.
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Well, we've got you covered.
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Today I'm sitting down with Julia Benning, lead Grooming Advisor for the Well-Groomed Pet franchise, and we're going to answer your questions about getting your pets ready, and more.
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We'll dive into tips for making a pet's first grooming a success and explore why well-groomed pets are healthy pets.
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And we're going to do it all so you're armed with this information just in time to make that appointment for the holiday season.
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Whether your pet's been to the groomers a hundred times or whether it's their first trip, if you want your furry friend to look and feel their best, you're not going to want to miss this episode.
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Stay tuned.
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You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.
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My guest today is Julia Benning.
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Julia is the lead grooming advisor for Well-Groomed Pets and she's a passionate pet care professional with more than 13 years of experience in the industry.
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Julia is a certified fear-free groomer, and her extensive training and education in pet health and wellness have earned her an impressive 100% five-star client rating.
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I'm excited to have her here today to share her expert insights on grooming, but also how it connects to your pet's overall wellness.
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So, julia, welcome to the show.
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Thank you so much for having me, amy.
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I'm happy to be here.
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I'm definitely glad to have you here, and I think this is perfect timing for everybody, because not only are we going to talk about grooming and some general guidelines and really open people's eyes maybe a little bit more, or open them completely, to the fact that grooming does have such a big impact on an animal's health, but then also, you know, everybody wants their pet to look great over the holidays, and I think sometimes we think about it at the last minute, kind of like getting our own hair done and then, guess what?
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You know, the person that cuts your hair can't get you in until February of 2025.
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So you got to plan ahead.
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So it's good we're doing this when we're doing this.
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So one of the things that I think that I've heard from groomers is that there are a lot of things that people could be doing to help themselves when it comes to taking their pet to the groomer.
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Sometimes people complain about having a bad experience.
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They cut my pets too short, they shaved them down when I didn't really want that, and I feel like a lot of that has to do with what is the pet parent doing at home to maintain that grooming along the way.
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So what I was hoping to kick off with is if you could give us some tips of things that pet parents could be doing between groomings or even before they take their pet ever to a groomer, to make everybody's life easier.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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That's definitely an important topic when we're talking about grooming here, and especially, like you said, in time for the holidays and things like that as well.
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So I think it kind of falls into two different categories here.
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There's the behavioral implications and then the maintenance, right, the maintenance of the skin and coat.
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So I'll kind of talk a little bit about the behavioral side of things first, and you know what we can do to mentally prepare our pups for the experiences that they're going to be going through during the grooming session.
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Right, there's, you know, one of my favorite groomers, karina Stanworthy.
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She likes to compare it to being abducted by an alien as the pet's experience of going to a dog groomer, right, I'm kind of taken away from my comfortable environment and I'm asked to endure things that I don't typically have to endure, and so it can be quite foreign for them.
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And so, first of all, drawing an awareness to that fact that this is something that is out of the ordinary for our dogs right, it's not part of their daily routine and having some empathy for that right, understanding that this is a little bit different for them.
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And so, from there, what can we do to make it a little easier for them to understand.
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Now, a lot of that does have to do with your groomer making sure that your groomer is educated on, you know, fear-free handling techniques, and a lot of it does rely on what the groomer can do with your pet during the session.
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But there's so much that pet parents can do at home to help prepare their pet as well.
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So things like practicing brushing, practicing having their feet held or their face held, and different things like this, you know that aren't normally part of a dog's everyday picture that they see.
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But we can kind of start introducing them to these things in an environment when they're comfortable at home with their pet parent.
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I will say there are some dogs who are, you know, particularly reactive to having their feet touched and things like that, and so there is a way to go about desensitizing your pet to these things.
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We don't want to just, you know, push them through it and force them to let me hold their paw.
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So if you're practicing these things with your pet at home practicing brushing or having their face held or their feet held and you notice them struggling a lot and it's it's something that's kind of increasing their, their distress then I would recommend waiting.
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You know, maybe that's not something that you practice at home.
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Leave that to a groomer who's been, you know, professionally trained or fear-free certified, to help kind of desensitize them to that process.
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But most dogs we can do a lot at home as the pet parent.
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They trust us and they might be a little uncomfortable hey mom, I don't want you pulling on my paw right now, but we can usually kind of reason with them, maybe give them some treats, use some soothing words and make it a positive experience for them, and keeping it really short and sweet too.
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This is like five, maybe 10 minutes or so, once a day, a few times a week.
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It doesn't have to be anything super intensive, but just so that they start to understand the picture of what it looks like when someone comes to kind of pick up my paw Right.
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So from that behavioral standpoint that's kind of a super important piece that the pet parents can help kind of create what that picture looks like for the pet at home.
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Right, and doesn't it help if they start that early on?
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I mean, I would think, just like any other, you know, getting an animal used to a certain experience, a certain level of conditioning, a certain level of training, you know there's elements of all of those things in there.
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But if I start when my puppy is a puppy, by touching their feet and associating that with positive things like getting, you know, I hold your paw to the count of two, you know, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, and I let it go and I give you a treat, and then maybe I make it a little bit longer as I go along versus expecting.
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At two years old I've never been groomed.
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I've never, you know, had a bath, except the water hose in the backyard in my face and thinking that that's going to go well when you run to the groomer.
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And then you're mad when the groomer can't do what you need to get done.
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Well, you didn't do your part at home?
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Absolutely yes, and part of our responsibility as groomers is to be an advocate for the pet.
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Right, we have to be the ones that are sharing with the pet parents.
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Hey look, your pup's really not comfortable with this.
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We're not going to push them any further, right, we have to be that advocate.
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So that's why you'll hear that from your groomers a lot.
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It is our responsibility to make sure that we're protecting the pet's well-being and that doesn't that, you know that extends to a mental well-being as well.
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But to answer your question, yes, of course it's always better to start early.
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The earlier you can start the desensitizing, the better.
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But you know, I'm always against that saying of you can't teach an old dog new tricks, right?
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We see it even with rescue dogs.
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People adopt dogs that are adult dogs and we have no idea what that pet's gone through in its life.
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Maybe it's been familiar with grooming, maybe it's had terrible grooming experiences, maybe it's never been groomed in its life, right, and we can still use the same tactics and the same methods to help desensitize to the grooming process and help them get more comfortable.
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So that's honestly one of my favorite parts is when I have a rescue dog come in that's so sensitive.
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You know they're being screamed when you just go to touch them and then over the months that I groom them as they come back and we practice and I can show that pet that I respect their boundaries.
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I earn their trust and you know that first time that pet comes in their haircut might not look perfect, but by the third or fourth visit that pet trusts me enough that I'm able to give the pet parent the perfect haircut that they love and that's a really rewarding process.
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So of course it's important to start early, but it's also not an excuse not to start desensitizing as well.
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You can start this at any time and it will help your pet with the grooming experience.
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Yeah, that's a good point and I think that setting that was actually I was going to ask you about not setting your expectations too high.
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I mean, it's going to depend on the scenarios, and I've seen these videos where somebody finds a dog on the streets and of course this is an extreme example but finds a dog on the streets, has to lure it to their car.
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The dog's terrified, you know, just kind of like skulking around to the car.
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They pick it up, they put it in the car and the next thing you know they're throwing it in the bathtub and I'm like, is that really?
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I mean, I just adopted this dog from the shelter four days before Thanksgiving and I'm going to bring it to a new house.
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I'm going to, you know, get it to the vet to get vaccine.
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You know it's going to get neutered, all these things are going to happen to it, and then I'm going to run it to a groomer.
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Like you have to expect that you're not going to necessarily be able to accomplish all of those things effectively for many pets, because they need more time to decompress and get used to their surroundings, if nothing else.
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Absolutely, and the same goes for puppies as well.
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You know, with the holidays around the corner, a lot of people are going to be bringing home puppies and you know it's really good to have realistic expectations and understand that this is going to be really scary for the puppy at first and that the first grooming appointment, the whole goal, should really be just having a positive first experience for the puppy.
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Now I will say there are some puppies just like with people, everybody's different.
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There are some puppies that might be so relaxed by the grooming process that I can give them the most beautiful haircut you've ever seen on their first time in the grooming salon.
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We do get those, so it does happen.
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But for the most part, you know you want to expect that first session.
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Maybe we'll get to trim a little bit around the feet, maybe a little bit around the eyes, but you're not expecting a full body haircut out of your puppy's first grooming session.
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And so it is good to make sure that, especially if you have some specific expectations of what you want your pup to look like for the holidays, if you guys have some holiday photo shoots coming up or family pictures, things like that, that you communicate that with your groomer early, like months in advance, so that if there's any prep work that needs to be done, either by the groomer or the pet parent, that you guys are working together as a team to work towards that goal.
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Yeah, that's a good point.
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I mean, communication is such an important part of this process and I would think and this is terrible to admit, but I've never had a pet that I've taken to the groomer, except for one and it was a dog that I found when I was doing rescue and I ended up adopting.
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It was a foster fail kind of situation and he did go to the groomer.
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But other than that, I don't have a lot of experience taking my pet to the groomer.
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But I've been on the other end of, you know, helping groomers work on their communication skills and how do they respond when they get angry customers and things like that.
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To know that you know that communication is such a two way street, you have to let your groomer know this is, you know, this is what I'm trying to accomplish, and groomers have to be great communicators to say I really would love to do that, but that's going to be a process.
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It's going to take this amount of months to get your dog to that point.
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It's not going to happen in this visit.
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It's so important to set those expectations and have those conversations before, not after, you hand over the dog.
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It's not one person's fault or the other.
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It's a two-way street for sure.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And that kind of ties into the second half of your question of you know what can people do to help prep their pets for grooming.
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The maintenance side of things, you know we kind of talked about the behavioral, but when it comes to the true skin and coat maintenance, that communication is just as important in those types of conversations as well.
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So things like matting matting is probably the number one kind of pain point between the pet parents and the groomers.
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It's really difficult for pet parents to understand why it is that we can't give them exactly what they want when their pet is matted.
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And being able to have the conversations and explain that to the pet parents is extremely important.
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And then you know vice versa as well.
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It is extremely hard for us as a groomer to have a matted pet walk in and have a pet parent who tells us I promise, I brush them every day.
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Right, it's our instinct as a groomer to be like no, you don't.
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But I know plenty of pet parents who brush their dogs religiously and they still come in with mats and tangles.
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It's not a matter of a lack of care, it's a matter of a lot of people have dogs with difficult coats to maintain nowadays and it's hard to, even if you're investing the time to have the right tools and the right methods and the consistency.
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It's tough on pet parents out there.
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So of course the communication between the pet parent and the groomers is super important.
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But also we as groomers have to recognize that pet parents are doing their best with the information that they're provided as well, so it's up to us to kind of educate them.
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So things like regular brushing are extremely important to being able to have the type of groom or the type of haircut that you want.
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Now if you're one of those people where you like your dog nice and buzzed, super short, sure, maybe it's not as important to brush them quite as regularly.
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Of course we still want to keep them mat and tangle free for their own comfort.
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But if you're not too worried about having a really long fluffy fur, not quite as big of a deal.
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But if you do want your dog to be fluffy, then brushing them every day is super important and not just brushing them, you know, for five minutes and kind of calling it a day.
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But what happens a lot of times when pet parents spend just a little bit of time brushing their dog is they will brush the top layer of the fur.
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That's what I was going to ask you.
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They don't brush those armpits.
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I know they don't.
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Exactly, and I always like to play devil's advocate for the pet parent because I think they get a lot of heat.
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They catch a lot of heat and sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it's not.
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But you could spend 15 minutes brushing your dog from nose to tail, getting the armpits, and still be missing tangles.
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So because you're only using one brush, if you use a slicker brush, that's great.
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That's what we typically recommend for removing matting or dead undercoat tangles, things like that.
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A slicker brush is a phenomenal tool for pet parents to use.
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But you have to check with a metal comb as well.
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If you don't go over the coat with a metal comb, that slicker brush might just brush all the way through, and then when you go through with the comb, you'll hit a tangle that you didn't know was there, and so that's indicating to you that you have to go back to that area.
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So again, even I could spend 15 minutes brushing a dog from nose to tail and getting the armpits and the ears and everything, and I could go back over with the comb and there's still tangles in there that I need to go back and brush out.
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So making sure that you're using the right tools and kind of checking your work is super important and to your point, amy, when you're brushing, there are areas that typically get more matting that we want to focus on, that groomers often have to shave out, and that is the armpit areas, the ears, behind the ears, under the ears, a lot of times the base of the tail as well, in the tail itself.
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So those are areas that are kind of key matting areas that you want to double check.
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But step one, make sure you have a slicker brush and a comb, and I will always advocate as well for using some sort of scissoring spray or dematting spray, conditioning spray, leave-in conditioning spray.
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That type of product will help protect the integrity of the coat itself, so that you're not breaking and damaging the coat as you're brushing them out.
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Integrity of the coat itself, so that you're not breaking and damaging the coat as you're brushing them out.
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So it's super important for maintenance at home and that's going to, you know, help your groomer be able to to give you the haircut that you want.
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Yeah, and I think people need to be realistic with themselves too as to how much are they willing to do.
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I mean, it's the same thing we talk about with all aspects of dog life, is?
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It's all about fit.
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So, like I will be the first one to admit, I cannot tell you the last time any of my dogs have been brushed which I want to talk about, because there's a lot of people and I know it and I still don't do what I need to do but there's a lot of people that think you know, my dog's a lab so it doesn't need to be brushed.
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And I know that it does.
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But I've got all these short haired dogs.
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I don't brush them, but I know for a fact, like if I had a fluffy dog, it would be a matted mess, because I am honest enough with myself to know that I am not going to brush my dog every single day, Just like I don't brush their teeth every single day.
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I'm just, I'm a bad person, obviously.
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I'm the same way.
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We don't worry.
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That's why I got.
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That's why I got the dog that I got, because I knew I wouldn't be brushing it every single day.
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That's right.
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So you've got to think about that when you think about okay, either I'm going to have to do this myself in between, or I'm going to be taking my.
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If I decide that I want this higher maintenance animal as far as their coat or their teeth or whatever it might be, then I'm going to have to pay the groomer and I'm going to have to go more frequently.
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It's not going to be something where I can just go at Christmas time kind of thing, or just go for the holidays and think that that's going to cover it, or once a quarter, yeah you're not wrong, but unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation out there, particularly when it comes to our designer breeds, the doodles and anything with poodle mixes in it.
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You know, I'm honestly not sure why, but for some reason there are a lot of doodle breeders out there that are deliberately misinforming their pet parents and people that purchase dogs from them.
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So we as groomers hear time and time again the breeder told me I didn't need to brush him.
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The breeder told me he shouldn't have a haircut until he's a year old.
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And these are golden doodles and labradoodles and sheepadoodles and burnadoodles and all of those right, I see it time and time again in the Facebook groomer groups that this pet parent was told not to take their dog to the groomer until it's a year old.
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So again, we have to be, you know, kind of sympathetic with our pet parents, who are doing their best and thought that they could handle this type of dog, and now they're kind of saddled with a dog that realistically needs to be seen by a groomer every four weeks for the rest of its life.
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And doodle grooming is not cheap, right, and there's a reason for that when you have a dog that is partially a short hair breed or a medium hair breed mixed with a long hair breed.
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We get both of those coat types in this mysterious coat that pops up, and that's one of the reasons why doodle coats are so varied and so diverse.
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You never really know, what you're going to get but you know it's going to be more difficult than you know even a standard poodles curly coat which has a lot of integrity to it and is very predictable, right so?
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So you're absolutely right.
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Making sure that you're picking a dog that is a good fit for what you are willing to invest is super important, but unfortunately, there are some pet parents out there who you know have been misinformed, and that's led them to be in a situation where, you know, maybe they can't afford grooming every four weeks for a doodle, and so that's when you have to kind of pivot work with your groomer on a haircut that is good for maintenance but still leaves you with a pup that looks as cute as you want.
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Yeah, that's a good point, because there are so many types of coats you know some you're limited in what you can do with them.
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I mean, if you've got a lab, that's the only thing you're going to do there Exactly, but if you've got a doodle or if you've got a poodle I mean there's so many Even Yorkies like I've always been a huge, huge fan of the puppy.
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Lower maintenance too, to keep that shorter cut.
00:19:10.506 --> 00:19:12.188
So you know it's.
00:19:12.188 --> 00:19:14.771
That's a good point is understanding what you're getting into.
00:19:14.771 --> 00:19:25.784
I want to hit on that idea, or mistaken idea, that I have, and probably a lot of people have that because my dog's got short hair, I don't need to go to a groomer.
00:19:25.864 --> 00:19:33.310
What are the health or other advantages that even a short haired dog maybe they're not going for a haircut, but there are other things that they can get done at a groomer that help them.
00:19:33.853 --> 00:19:35.195
Yeah, absolutely so.
00:19:35.195 --> 00:19:41.457
All dogs should be bathed technically speaking, if we want to go textbook level here every 21 days.
00:19:41.457 --> 00:19:43.862
So that's the keratinization cycle of the skin.
00:19:43.862 --> 00:19:45.932
So it takes about 21 days.
00:19:45.932 --> 00:19:50.739
If you were to bathe your dog 21 days later they've got dead skin cells sitting on them again, right?
00:19:50.739 --> 00:20:01.452
And so what can happen when the dog has dead skin cells and dead coat and things like that sitting on the skin is it can lead to bacterial infections and yeast infections, skin infections, things like that.
00:20:01.874 --> 00:20:11.711
So being able to remove the dead skin, any dirt and debris that's in there, is really helpful for their skin and coat health from that perspective, right.
00:20:11.711 --> 00:20:15.781
But with short hair dogs they have different types of hair, right.
00:20:15.781 --> 00:20:18.075
So you have the undercoat and you have the top coat.
00:20:18.075 --> 00:20:32.634
So when the undercoat is dying and just sitting on the skin, it's just going to stack up and stack up and stack up, and that's when we start to see those little tufts on, usually towards, like the hindquarters, on, you know, huskies or labs that you just pull out these little tufts, right?
00:20:32.634 --> 00:20:36.653
So there's fur like that that's sitting all along the base of the skin.
00:20:36.653 --> 00:20:41.535
It's not just in those little areas that we're seeing and that's preventing the skin from being able to breathe.
00:20:41.654 --> 00:20:57.624
So, in combination with having dead skin cells and dirt and debris and it being kind of pushed down and impacted underneath that dead coat, that's really a perfect breeding ground for bacteria and things like that and can lead to skin infections.
00:20:57.624 --> 00:21:22.621
It can also be something where maybe your pet doesn't seem to have issues with that, but maybe they got a particular area that's bugging them Maybe their hip is bugging them or they got a bug bite or something like that and if they go to start chewing on that area, having a healthy and clean skin is probably not going to cause many problems if they start chewing on it, whereas if they're dirty, that's like a perfect breeding ground for hot spots.
00:21:23.041 --> 00:21:25.290
So like having dirty hands and getting a cut.
00:21:25.431 --> 00:21:27.395
Exactly, exactly, yeah.
00:21:27.395 --> 00:21:34.861
So if your dog is, is you know, say they haven't been bathed in you know, four to six weeks or so and they get one little spot that starts to get itchy.
00:21:34.861 --> 00:21:37.696
Much more likely for that area to turn into a hotspot.
00:21:37.696 --> 00:21:39.741
Same thing for, like, your Labradors.
00:21:40.049 --> 00:21:59.317
Sure, you may think, oh, you know, they don't really need much grooming or things like that, but that coat is so thick that if that dog gets moist, whether they are going for a swim, as labs do, or just taking a walk out in the rain, it's going to be so hard for that skin to dry and yet again, it's just a feeding ground for bacteria and other types of infections.
00:21:59.317 --> 00:22:08.132
So it's really, really crucial for those reasons, but it also we can have dry skin issues, and dry skin is so uncomfortable for our dogs as well.
00:22:08.132 --> 00:22:13.916
So if they get a little bit too dried out, they really need those oils replenished, and the only way to do that is with a bath.
00:22:13.916 --> 00:22:21.258
So those are just a couple of things that we typically see from short-coated dogs that don't get trips to the groomer very frequently.
00:22:21.258 --> 00:22:35.344
And of course, that is leaving out their ear cleaning and their anal glands and their nails and all of those other things that are super important, piece of what happens with your pet at the groomer as opposed to grooming them at home.
00:22:36.190 --> 00:22:50.711
Yeah, and I think you know there's probably a lot of people listening at the, you know that are thinking to themselves well, you know I've got a lab and I can do that, or I've got a certain kind of dog and I can do that, but the question is, are you going to do it?
00:22:50.711 --> 00:22:51.777
Are you going to do it on a routine basis, like that?
00:22:51.777 --> 00:22:52.701
And then you mentioned some key things there.
00:22:52.701 --> 00:23:07.238
You know the other elements of things that are going to happen at a groomer, like I worked for a veterinarian for eight years so I can do anal glands, but most people are like you know, not only can they not do it, they don't want anything to do with it, and it's understandable, you know
00:23:07.577 --> 00:23:15.250
but yeah, or or ear cleaning and knowing when there's an infection, versus, you know, just dirt in their ears or whether somebody's got mites of some kind or whatever.
00:23:15.250 --> 00:23:21.070
I mean, that's all stuff that a good groomer would be able to identify and help you, you know.
00:23:21.070 --> 00:23:30.016
At least bring it to your attention so that if you have to follow up with a veterinarian to get some, you know, ointment for the ears or whatever, it might be that they would notice that.
00:23:30.016 --> 00:23:31.096
Yeah absolutely.
00:23:31.517 --> 00:23:36.082
That whole concept is actually the brainchild and the birth of well-groomed pets.
00:23:36.082 --> 00:23:39.905
That's everything that we do at Well-Groomed Pets is while your pet is here for grooming.
00:23:39.905 --> 00:23:47.594
It's an opportunity for us to be able to identify if there's any areas that your pet needs some support when it comes to wellness, right.
00:23:47.594 --> 00:23:48.355
So, of course, that's super crucial.
00:23:48.355 --> 00:23:56.876
You know that's another piece that your groomer is an educated pet professional that is able to see things that you might not be able to see, and we see our pets every day.
00:23:56.876 --> 00:24:01.217
We might not notice minute changes, right, but your groomer is going to be able to notice those changes.
00:24:01.298 --> 00:24:11.291
So that's a huge piece of it, absolutely the kind of extra layer of eyes and expertise on your dog, but also the extra level of training and tools, even just the tools.
00:24:11.291 --> 00:24:22.355
You know like you could give your Labrador the best bath in the world at home and that dog is squeaky clean, but you don't have a high velocity dryer that's going to blow all of their undercoat out at home.
00:24:22.355 --> 00:24:29.174
So that makes a huge difference, and we see it time and time again with the short coated dogs that do come in for grooming.
00:24:29.174 --> 00:24:32.603
They're like you know I can do it at home, but it's just never the same.
00:24:32.603 --> 00:24:37.039
They'll even purchase our products and use them at home and they're like it still isn't the same.
00:24:37.039 --> 00:24:44.551
And so part of that is the tools that we have in the grooming salon as well that allow us to kind of create that product.
00:24:44.551 --> 00:24:45.493
That's just a little bit.
00:24:45.493 --> 00:24:48.156
It's just a different level above what you can do at home.
00:24:48.557 --> 00:24:49.680
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:58.772
It's kind of like the time I went to New Orleans and I went to Cafe Du Monde and was like totally enamored by the coffee and the beignets and thought, oh, I'm just going to buy that coffee and make it home.
00:24:58.772 --> 00:25:08.982
I don't know, there's either some secret ingredient or some equipment, because it's just, it's hard to recreate something when it's being created by a professional with the knowledge about how to do it right.
00:25:08.982 --> 00:25:10.325
And that's one of the.
00:25:10.325 --> 00:25:16.460
You know, when we were first talking about getting together and doing this episode, I was like, oh, you know, we've done a thing on grooming.
00:25:16.950 --> 00:25:29.378
But what was very intriguing to me was the concept and I want to talk about that just a little bit more that it really is about the wellness of the pet, not just about getting the pet's haircut.
00:25:29.378 --> 00:25:32.795
So I'm assuming that your average groomer doesn't have.
00:25:32.795 --> 00:25:36.163
I mean, do they get, when they go through their grooming, training?
00:25:36.163 --> 00:25:41.891
Do they get pet wellness, you know, skin health, all of that stuff, or is it about how to do haircuts?
00:25:41.891 --> 00:25:48.111
Or how does one even know, if I'm going to a grooming shop, whether those people have any training at all?
00:25:48.111 --> 00:25:50.075
I mean, are they just maybe learned on the job?
00:25:50.075 --> 00:25:53.241
Like, how does that work as a consumer, to make good choices?
00:25:53.903 --> 00:26:01.951
Yeah, that's a great question and unfortunately this industry is is quite unregulated, so there isn't an easy way to know.
00:26:01.951 --> 00:26:04.599
So there's a few different certifications that you can go by.
00:26:04.599 --> 00:26:10.897
When it comes to how the groomer has been trained on how to handle your pet, fear-free certification is always.
00:26:10.897 --> 00:26:15.826
I always recommend that people, if you can find a groomer that is fear-free certified.
00:26:15.826 --> 00:26:20.642
That's all about reducing fear, anxiety and stress in the pets during their grooming sessions.
00:26:20.642 --> 00:26:25.179
The AKC Safe certification is another great one to look for as well.
00:26:25.179 --> 00:26:33.324
That is a level of certification showing that you know how to safely groom this pet and keep that pet safe while it's out of the care of its pet parents.
00:26:33.324 --> 00:26:34.268
So that's another one.
00:26:34.268 --> 00:26:36.438
That's just kind of like a good base certification.
00:26:36.778 --> 00:26:46.334
But when it comes to how the groomers received their training, there's so many different certifications out there from different groups and different programs and things like that.
00:26:46.334 --> 00:26:55.124
Generally speaking, most of them teach how to perform these haircuts on these dogs and they don't typically elaborate much on wellness.
00:26:55.124 --> 00:27:06.911
So most of the wellness information that the groomers receive is typically something that we learn on the job from seeing these dogs and saying, hey, this dog has this hotspot that's popping up in this one spot all the time.
