Two dogs today, and neither one of them made it easy. One came in with a coat that broke my heart a little, and the other treated her bath like an escape room. Here is how Thursday went in the van.
Ottis the Doodle
Ottis was first, and I have been grooming Ottis for a very long time. He is one of my favorite doodles, and he is usually fluffy all over and in absolutely perfect shape when he hops up on my table.
Today was not that day. No fault of his owner. Things did not go the way any of us planned. When I started working through his coat I found matting on his leg, matting across his back, knots at the base of his tail, and knots at the tips of his ears. It was not a little bit of tangling. It was the kind of matting that has already been pulling on his skin and making him uncomfortable, and he had been uncomfortable long enough that he did not want to get in the van at all today, which is not like him.
I want to be straight with you about what happens next, because this is the part of the job I do not enjoy. I cannot brush matting like that out. I could have tried, but the only way to get those knots out is to pull on his skin over and over, and I am not going to do that to a dog to make him look a certain way. I will not ruin my relationship with a dog over a haircut. So Ottis got shaved down.
I kept most of his head, and I reshaped his tail so it still looks decent, though I had to clip a few dreads off the end. His ears had knotted at the tips, so I trimmed the tips short rather than pull through them, which is also how you help a dog avoid a hematoma in an ear. He is short now, and I know his family likes him long. I texted his mom before I did it, and she understood.
Here is the thing I really want people to take away from Ottis, because I see it go wrong all the time. When a dog gets shaved down, the owner usually wants to skip the next appointment, because there is not much hair to cut anyway. That is the trap. The next appointment is not about a haircut — it is about going back over the whole dog, making sure the coat is brushed all the way through, and evening out the growth so it comes back properly. Skip that appointment, and the dog goes too long, and then we are right back to a shave-down. That is how a dog ends up in the same short haircut every single visit, and how people end up hating the groom and quitting. It takes exactly one shave-down to start that loop, and it is so much easier to stay out of it than to climb back out.
Ottis was a very good boy through all of it, and he is still handsome. It does not matter what length his fur is. He is adorable, and he deserves to be comfortable.
Sadie the German Shepherd
Sadie was the last dog of the day, and Sadie is a smaller German Shepherd. I do not see her very often, and she is a skittish girl, so every visit is a bit of a trust exercise for both of us.
She needed her nails done, and she was not thrilled about it. When I sprayed her back foot with water, she kicked a leg out like it tickled, which was genuinely one of the funniest things I have seen in the van. Then she tried to climb her way out of the bathtub, and out of her harness, and it was clear she would rather be almost anywhere else. I told her that was not going to help her, and she did not believe me.
She got cotton balls in her ears and the happy hoodie for the dryer, and we took all of it at her pace. I also noticed her knee popping when I moved that leg, so I took things gently on that side. She barely sheds at all, which makes her a pretty easy coat to manage, and the whole groom took about an hour.
Here is what I love about Sadie. When I am on the route, I watch which dogs are always clean between visits, because it tells me a family is doing the work at home. Sadie is always clean. Her family grooms her at home in between our appointments, and it shows. And she did get in the van on her own today, which, if you knew her, is a win.
I will not see Sadie again until around January, and I will miss her. She is a good girl, even when she is planning her escape.
Two dogs, one very heavy heart over a coat, and one determined escape artist. That was Thursday.
Until next time, my furry friends!
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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.