I groomed my first dog when I was 7 years old. The story goes something like this…
I had been given my very own dog as a birthday present. I was 7! I knew it all. We do at that age, don’t we 😉
My Mandy was a Cairn Terrier, and she was my absolute world. I loved her with all my heart. Together, we planned to win Crufts, travel the world and we would be together forever.
I was desperate to prove to my parents that I was a competent dog owner, and as such, I could groom Mandy. I didn’t know the difference between the kitchen scissors and the grooming scissors, but I was planning to win Crufts, so I felt sure the bigger scissors were the THE scissors that would help get me there…
I stood Mandy on the coal bunker. Now, I must digress and update our younger readers, who are probably asking “what is a coal bunker”. Before the days when gas was piped to every house and years before central heating was an expectation of every home owner, we had a coal fires to heat our homes. The fire sat in a grate (open space) within a brick surround and required “making” before it produced any heat.
Mum would create a little bonfire in the grate consisting of scrunched up newspapers, starting wood (skinny sticks) and coal. It would be heaped up together and a match would set fire to the papers, which in turn would light the sticks and then the coal. Once burning, logs were added. Soon enough the fire was roaring and sparks would jump out, get stuck on your socks and burn your feet!
The coal was delivered to our house by a coal man, every village had one! He would arrive in his big truck and chuck enormous sacks of coal onto his back. He would lug them around to the back of the house and empty them into the coal bunker. See the picture below!
The hatch on the top would lift up, the coal would be dumped in, and then when we needed coal for the fire, we lifted the hatch at the front and scooped it out on a shovel. To warm our homes in the 80’s was certainly a bit more complicated than flicking the switch on the thermostat as we do nowadays🤣
With Mandy standing on the coal bunker, I picked up the kitchen scissors and chopped away. I lifted her coat and chopped this way, and that. When the job was complete, I was chuffed to bits. My 7 year old eyes saw a Crufts Champion. I paraded Mandy into the kitchen for my Mum to congratulate my efforts. However, my Mums eyes saw a hacked off mess! This was the moment that would put me on the path to being the Groomer I am today.
I was marched off to have a grooming lesson from Jean Curtis. Jean owned the Curtisey Cairns in Redditch, Worcestershire. Her mentor had been Gay Marsh of the TopTwig Cairns, a very successful kennel of Cairns that greatly contributed to the breeds development through the 60’s and 70’s. I can remember that grooming lesson to this day! A whopping 42 years after it took place, the memory is bright and clear.
I was shown how to hand strip with finger and thumb, where to pluck hair and what to leave in place, to scissor the pads and use a scalpel stripping knife, too! This tool was a little sharp and pointy for my tiny hands to master. We used chalk powder to help us pluck, and I was taught to see layers in the coat. I couldn’t wait to get home and try out my new skills on Mandy and any other poor unsuspecting Cairn that happened to wonder past…
Looking back, I can see that hacking off Mandy’s coat was such a great life lesson. By getting something so wrong,it lead to me gaining so many new skills and started to develop my grooming knowledge. I have to say a massive thank you to both my Mum and Jean. Mum could have told me off and sent me to bed (that may well have happened but I don’t remember). But by ringing Jean and teaching me to groom properly, I was encouraged, inspired and educated. I was going to be a groomer!
I meandered around with various jobs before settling into a career as a Groomer. I was a legal secretary, admin assistant, mental health support worker, Area Manager for a disability charity and PA for a local businessman too! All these jobs help me run my business now.
When people enquire how long I have been grooming, I am proud to say over 40 years and regale a shorter version of the above tale.
Part of my working week, albeit part time now, is spent teaching people who want to learn to groom their own dogs. This can be a contentious thing to do as some established groomers say we, as an industry, shouldn’t teach companion dog owners to groom their own dogs. I disagree. There are people out there who own dogs and for one of the below reasons want to learn to do it themselves…
I always ask Students at the start of my Learn To Groom Your Own Dog training session “what is the reason for you to be here today?” one of the below is always given as a reply
I can’t afford the grooming fee’s any longer
I trained as a hairdresser and feel I can make a better job than my groomer
My dog is terrified of the groomers and I want to support him better at home
I am retired and think its a nice thing to do
These reasons are all fair and valid. I teach Students to groom their own dogs in a safe and dog specific way. Dogs are as unique as you and I and as such an individual approach needs to be taken.
I was fortunate that my first teachers, Jean and Mum, instilled this in me. Each Cairn had a unique coat and you had to work it out before grooming it. I work out what each Student wants now and work in a person and dog specific manner.
One of the things I always convey within my training sessions is that it is absolutely expected that we will get it wrong. Afterall, we do our best learning when we rise from the darkest depths of our mistakes…
Getting it wrong isn’t, of course, what Students have come to learn. They want to get it right and get it right they do BUT not after they have got it wrong a few times. I don’t criticise or shout, we laugh and I make a joke or two (not always appropriate but sometimes we can giggle about our errors). I then show the Student how to correct their mistakes and we move on, they won’t cut as much off again as they have learnt. They have learnt a new skill.
I work mostly on a one to one basis with Students now. At the outset of our time together, there is always some nerves and a period of getting to know each other. But, we quickly get on with the grooming and I tell them about all the mistakes I have made but also what I have learnt from those mistakes. We settle down into grooming, the clippers come out and they shave their dog.
The most recent Learn To Groom Your Own Dog session that I did was with a lady who had always groomed her own dog but she wasn’t happy with the finish and that bits of hair were sticking out a few days after her completed groom. She was that unhappy with her own grooming she was now using a local groomer to groom her dog for her.
We talked about how she was grooming, the techniques she used for washing, drying and clipping. As the Student talked, I knew exactly what she was doing wrong, she mentioned two or three key points that lead me to know why the dogs hair was sticking out after her grooming.
I knew how to solve her problems.
I won’t bore you with the details. If you are a groomer and you are genuinely interested then email me and I will take you through it but for the every day reader, I promise you would be bored with the details so I will save you the torture of “groomer speak” and just say “it was wrong” and together we “put it right”
I was really chuffed to received this from the Student two days later:
Dawn, thank you so much for today. I didn’t realise how little I knew already, despite clipping Bayley myself all these years, and learned so much today. I think your knowledge and expertise is excellent, not only on grooming but dog behaviour and welfare. Our time was so beneficial and I am looking forward to practising all I’ve learned. Going to invest in those clippers and a grooming arm ASAP. Thanks again, and a brilliant idea sharing everything as we went along today. Jayne & Bayley
I share Jayne’s comments with her permission!
For me, it was a simple thing that I shared with Jayne. But simple for me, has helped Jayne so much. Simple for me will mean Jayne enjoys her grooming so much more and it will save her hundreds in grooming fees. It may inspire her to take up grooming as a career too. Like the techniques I learnt from Mum and Jean all those years ago, what seems simple to us because we have had the experience of getting it wrong and learning, is ground breaking for another . One thing is for sure none of use will be using the kitchen scissors to groom our dogs!
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