Overview of Groom Training Course

Is your dog afraid of the groomers? Does your groomer say things like, “Angel wasn’t very nice today,” or “I couldn’t cut Bailey’s nails this time. He was too wiggly!”

Grooming is an important aspect of dog care, but it’s not always easy to do. A dog groomer has to clip and file the nails, shave the paw pads, clean the ears, express the anal glands, wash and completely dry the coat, as well as any haircuts that may need to happen.

Even a tiny “Bath and Brush” like our beloved chihuahuas get can involve a lot of different things they may find scary. If they’re not conditioned to the grooming experience, it’s a little like tossing a child in the deep end of the pool to teach them how to swim.

Most dogs do manage of course, but some end up being banned from groom shops. Even if they aren’t banned, grooming can end up being a dreaded experience for them when it doesn’t have to be.

It Starts with You

Conditioning your dog to grooming has to start at home. Groom training involves breaking down the grooming process into manageable pieces that your dog is comfortable with. This isn’t possible during a groom session, because the entire process is being done to your dog all at once.

It’s also difficult for a groomer to break the process down little by little at their shop, because just entering the shop can cause dogs to be afraid. It’s a little like going to a haunted house when you know you don’t like ghosts. You’re already anticipating something scary, and that effects learning.

Although most dogs adjust well if they are groomed every two weeks or so as puppies, others learn to fight or panic, especially if they are young adults or older puppies before the groom process is introduced.

Fortunately, even if your dog has already had a bad experience, groom training can help ease their fears.

Benefits of Groom Training

As you can see by looking at the list below, there’s a lot that goes into preparing your dog for grooming. Indeed, if each section of this course takes a week, you may find yourself working on this for over 18 months. That’s a lot of time to commit to groom training, especially if you’ve never done more than a 6 week puppy class with your dog. Why bother?

Let’s start with benefits for your dogs. Dogs are generally groomed around once a month, with maintenance done by you in between. Most dogs will need brushing at least once a week, and chihuahuas should have their teeth brushed every day.

That’s a lot of grooming, and if your dog is fearful, that’s many hours of their life given to something they hate. Why not make it a positive, or at least neutral, experience for them?

Added onto this, well behaved dogs get better quality grooms than poorly behaved dogs. When a dog holds still for their nail trim, the groomer can cut the nails shorter because they can see what they’re doing clearly. When a dog is wild and thrashing, you get what you get.

Aggressive or otherwise difficult dogs usually get charged more due to their poor behavior, and the worst dogs are refused service. If they can’t be groomed at a groom shop, the next step is sedated grooming by a veterinarian. A sedated groom by the vet can cost several hundred dollars. Imagine having to shell that out every month!

If you are maintaining them at home, it’s also much easier if your dog enjoys the process. When your dog is happy to be groomed, that daily brush can be bonding time. When they hate it, it becomes a trial.

What This Course Includes

This is a 30-part series (with a few broken into sub parts) breaking down the entire grooming process your chihuahua will experience. Although this is geared towards chihuahuas, this course works for all breeds. There are special notes for big dogs and dogs that get full haircuts throughout the course.

Here’s what’s in store:

Pre-Training Checklist

• All Equipment Needed for Training
• A crash course in dog behavior (anxiety signals, relaxed signals)
• If you know your dog is aggressive or fear bites
• A crash course in dog training (classical conditioning, clicker training and more)

The Groom Table

• Platform training, getting on and off a box
  This teaches your dog that tables have edges, something little dogs often don’t get a chance to learn because they are placed on the table. Learning to get on and off a table is also critical for big dogs, since they otherwise have to be lifted by the groomer.
• Wobble Board
  This teaches your dog that a platform isn’t always a stable surface. We’ll also show you how to make one, if you don’t want to purchase one for this course. This reduces fear of the table in a positive way.
• Lead Training
  This teaches your dog how to accept having a lead put over their head.

Touch Desensitization

• Foot handling
  This includes learning a couple of tricks such as shake hands and dance, as well as general foot handling. This is an important foundation for desensitizing nail clippers and paw pad trimmers later.
• Butt handling
  Dogs need to get their anal glands expressed, as well as having any long fur on their butt trimmed and combed. Most dogs handle having their anal glands expressed about as well as we handle getting our butt pinched by strangers, so this is an important one to go over.
• Tail handling
  For long haired chihuahuas, being able to brush and comb the tail is important.
• Ear handling
  Although purebred chihuahuas have a genetic protective effect against ear infections, being able to clean and potentially medicate the ears is very useful.
• Eye Care
  Eye boogers are a common problem in chihuahuas. Being able to safely clean the eyes is important. Chihuahuas are also prone to eye issues, so being able to medicate your pets eyes may come in handy in the future.
• Mouth handling
  Chihuahuas are prone to dental problems. Being able to safely brush your dog’s teeth is essential for their long-term health.

The Bath

• Desensitization to Water

While it’s a long road to making your dog like water, you can make it so that bath time is not a panic-inducing experience. We’ll be introducing the water in three separate ways so your dog has time to adjust to the water experience.

• Desensitization to Blow Dryers

The blow dryer is a necessary part of the groom experience, but it can be traumatic for dogs. We’ll go over how to help your dog adjust to the sights, sounds and feeling of the blow dryer.

The Groom Shop

• Tile Floors

Some dogs are fine on slick flooring, others act like Bambie on ice. This section introduces your dog to different floor types.

• Kennel Training
  Your dog will most likely spend at least some of their time in a kennel at the groom shop. This teaches your pet how to feel calm and comfortable while waiting in a kennel.
• Unfamiliar Situations
  While you can’t predict everything that could go on with your dog, you can help build resilience in your dog by providing unusual circumstances that broaden their world. We’ll talk about some ways to introduce your dog to unfamiliar situations, so they can build up experience in dealing with new things.

The Equipment

• Brush desensitization
  All that work desensitizing your dog to their body being touched was in part in preps for this part. With the groundwork laid, this section works on getting your dog used to the brush, and having the brush touch their body.
• Clipper Desensitization
  Clippers are loud and they vibrate. We taught the blow dryer first to help indirectly get them used to louder sounds and strange feelings on their body. (We also desensitized the body first to avoid stacking stressors.) We’ll break this into two steps, first desensitizing the sound, and then the vibrations.
• Scissor Desensitization
  Some dogs are afraid of the sound and feel of their hair being cut, even with scissors. This is especially the case if it occurs near their eyes or paws.
• Nail Trimmer Desensitization
  We’ll be working specifically with desensitizing the sight, sound and feeling of nail trims here.
• Toothbrush Desensitization
  We introduced mouth handling earlier. This takes that lesson a step farther with a toothbrush.
• Cotton balls, ear cleaner
  In this section we’ll introduce equipment, such as ear cleaner and cotton balls to the dog.
• Muzzles
  Even the sweetest, kindest dog can end up wearing a muzzle. Chihuahuas are a breed that, deserved or not, provoke almost as much fear in some people as an “aggressive breed.” It’s better to introduce your dog to the possibility now, then have them be introduced in a scary place later.

Basic Training

To wrap up the groom training series, we are going to talk about a few basic obedience cues your dog should learn that will benefit you and the groomer.

• Loose leash walking/yield to pressure
  If your pup knows to yield to pressure, they are less likely to hurt themselves on the groom table or in the bath tub.
• Sit
  Groomers frequently ask dogs who get haircuts to sit so they can check the blend between the chest and belly.
• Recall
  Many dogs break loose from their owners in the lobby or the parking lot. If your dog got loose, would they come back? Recall is the most vital of all dog training, and potentially life saving.
• Stand
  Stand is a rarely taught cue, but it is incredibly useful for grooming. Groomers must work on the dog’s rear end to complete a groom. If they sit all the time, blow drying, brushing and trimming becomes very difficult.

Doing Right By Your Dog

Groom training for your dog is finished here, but you can do more to make the experience positive. Here are a few ways to improve your pet’s grooming experience, as well as common questions asked.

• Essential items
  There are a couple of items I recommend bringing with you to the groom shop. We’ll list these items here and why they’re important.
• How to tell if a groom shop is good
  Grooming is largely unregulated, and it’s not always easy to tell if a groom shop is abusive or poorly run. Here are some tips on how to sleuth out whether the groomer you’ve selected has high standards, or if you should run—not walk—away.
• Groomer etiquette
  How to politely transfer a dog, what not to ask, things your groomer can’t tell you but would like to.
• Common questions answered
  Why does it cost so much? Should you tip? How much? Great groomer gifts.  Why it takes so long, etc.
• Obesity and other health concerns

All of these pages will be linked back as we complete them, and will have videos, comics and other supports to help you understand the concepts as clearly as possible.

Homework Helpers

To help you stay on track, each page will have a weekly homework sheet breaking down the process. We’ll also have notes for the groomer for parts where you may need groomer help, and a “Give it to me straight” behavior report card to check for problems at the groomers.

Use these as a guide if you’re not sure how to break down the behavior.

Use Common Sense

I was a professional dog groomer for over a decade. These are the training techniques I use on my own dogs. While they work for my pet, your dog may not react the same way. Use caution. If you think your dog may bite or don’t know how they will respond, muzzle train first and have them wear the muzzle during training.

You can access our muzzle training article here, but we’ll have a separate one at the end of the course too.

If you know your dog is aggressive, work with a fear-free dog trainer to approach these problems.

This advice is here to help, but we will not be held liable for unexpected aggression/problems with your pet/mishaps or injuries while you are training.

Every effort has been made to make this as safe and fear free as possible, but dogs can sometimes do strange things and end up acting unexpectedly. Be aware, and be safe while working with your pet.

Similar Posts:

• Pre-Training Checklist: All Tools Needed
• Questions from a Dog Author
• How To Maintain Your Pet’s Weight During Groom Training
• How to Deshed Your Chihuahua
• Breaking Down Muzzle Stigma with Social Media Celebrity Duo Kaylah and Stanley