Two dogs today, a doodle and a husky, and both of them were booked as long appointments. Four hours of grooming, plus the driving, plus one theme song I could not get out of my head.
Tina: the Tina song
Tina is a doodle, and she came with a whole soundtrack. I sang it at her, on repeat, for an unreasonable length of time: Tina, Tina, Tina, Tina, Tina.
What Tina actually is, is excited and nervous at the same time — a combination that comes out as little crying noises and a lot of kissing. She is a lover. She also arrived wearing a necklace, as one does. I told her we could just do this all day, just pet the Tina, and I meant it as a serious offer.
Her feet were the first order of business. “You ready to get your feets done?” is the technical term. She was game right up until the tools appeared, at which point we had a brief negotiation about whether she would be permitted to sniff things, and the answer was no sniffy sniffy. She also slid around the table like a freaking goober until we got something grippy under her, which is the entire fix and takes about four seconds.
She got a puppy squeegee before the dryer, which is exactly what it sounds like and which she tolerated with real dignity.
Ice: two blue eyes and an escape plan
Ice is a husky, and he has the eyes those dogs are famous for: both of them a pale, glassy blue. Not one of each — two blue eyes, straight through, sitting in a face that is otherwise entirely cream-colored fluff. It is a genuinely startling combination, like somebody put a snowdrift on the grooming table and it looked back at me.
Blue eyes in a husky are completely normal and say nothing about the dog’s health. It is a pigment thing. The blue-eye-plus-hearing concern people worry about belongs to merle-patterned dogs, which is a different genetic story entirely.
Ice’s main project today was not his coat. It was his traction. His back end has been giving him a hard time, and he is a silly boy who still tries to jump on absolutely everything anyway, so my job was to make the ground less interesting to leap off. We trimmed the hair around the paw pads so more of the pad is actually touching the table and the floor. Yes, that hair is there for protection — but a dog who is slipping needs pad contact more than he needs padding, and you can feel the difference immediately.
We also found the nails had worn themselves into a shape: the outer ones long, the two center ones worn down flat from how he has been standing. That is the kind of detail that tells you more about a dog’s gait than a photo ever will.
Ice is very good at one thing in particular, and that thing is trying to launch himself off the table. “No jumping” was said many times. “I just don’t want you to get hurt” was said at least twice. He also had one small accident on the table and looked mortified, and I want to put this in writing for anybody who has ever been embarrassed about this: it happens, you are not in trouble, and the correct response is a towel and a kind word. We cleaned it up and carried on.
The plan for his bath was deliberately smaller than usual: skip the head, focus on the rear end and the torso, keep him sitting, keep him calm. He got cotton balls and his Happy Hoodie, which I had to explain twice were not scary, and the AC went on so he would not overheat. He is doing physical therapy for the mobility stuff and I genuinely hope it helps him.
Brushing is Ice’s least favourite thing in the world. He hates it, he hates one side more than the other, and he will absolutely tell you about it. We did what he could tolerate and stopped there.
The coat at the end of it: I like his winter coat. It is fuller and fluffier and genuinely beautiful, and his summer coat was rougher going. Is he perfect? Not by a mile — there is so much more fluff I could have taken off him. But there is a difference between a coat that could be better and a dog who is being pushed past what he can handle, and he was not going to be the second one today.
He went home with a pumpkin spice greenie, having refused every treat I offered him all afternoon. Now he is a festive fellow. I will take the win.
One doodle with a theme song, one husky with two blue eyes and no respect for gravity. Four hours well spent.
Until next time, my furry friends!
Catch the Action Live! Want to see these grooming transformations happen in real time? Tune into the solo live stream over on Twitch at DogGroomerNicole. Whether we are tackling tricky coat conditions, working with different breeds and weight classes, or just enjoying some puppy cuddles, you can watch it all unfold straight from the van.
While you are watching from your laptop or desktop, please take a moment to click the link below the stream to learn more about Folds of Honor, a phenomenal charity we are incredibly proud to support.
See you all on the road!
About the Author
Nicole is the owner and certified groomer behind Vroom Grooms LLC, a mobile dog grooming service serving Northwest Ohio. She has been certified since 2020 after completing 640 hours of hands-on training.
This post was drafted with help from Nagini 🐍, her digital assistant, who keeps the blog running, handles the tech side of the website, and makes sure Nicole spends more time with dogs and less time wrestling with WordPress.