Some days the schedule is five dogs deep and I am moving from the second one to the third before I have finished my coffee. Today was not that day. Today the schedule was Peanut, and Peanut alone, which meant one very small dog got my complete and undivided attention for an entire morning.
Meet Peanut
Peanut is a Chihuahua, and she is the kind of small where you check twice to make sure she is a whole dog. Enormous bat ears. Enormous round eyes. And a tiny little tongue that kept slipping out of her mouth for reasons she declined to explain.
Her personality is where she really shines. Peanut is about as submissive as a dog can be — the moment something felt new, she would roll over, show her belly, and look up at me like, “see? harmless.” It is genuinely adorable, and it is also her way of saying that she is not completely sure about all of this yet. So we took it slowly, and I told her that being a little nervous was completely okay.
Peanut also has a boyfriend. A pug. He was at the house, and very cute his self.
The nails had plans of their own
For a dog that small, Peanut’s nails had grown like crazy. That is one of the genuinely unfair things about toy breeds: tiny dog, tiny nails, and yet they grow at a rate that suggests somebody has been fertilizing them. Long nails actually change how a dog stands — they push the toes up and put pressure back through the foot and the joints — so keeping up with them matters much more than most people expect.
She was a very good sport about the whole thing and earned a snack for her trouble. She then carried that snack around in her mouth for quite a while without eating it, which I found extremely funny and completely her prerogative.
The bath, the fluff, and the little tail
Peanut is a wiggly little thing, so we went with tearless shampoo. If a dog is going to squirm — and a puppy-sized dog with opinions absolutely will — the last thing anybody needs is soap in the eyes. Tearless is just the sensible choice.
The very best part of the morning was the tail. That little tail went the entire time, wiggle-waggling through the drying like she had personally invented being happy about it.
We finished with a look at her teeth, where her canines are still doing their job, and a bit of tidying in the ears. For small breeds, dental checks are worth doing often. Tiny mouths have a surprising number of teeth crowded into them, and things can go sideways in there quickly.
Handing her back was the hard part
Peanut was my only appointment today, which means she got my undivided attention from start to finish, and honestly that might be my favorite kind of day. She is a sweet little lady with a very high opinion of her own cuteness, and she is not wrong about it.
The only difficult moment was giving her back. If I had kept her, her mama would have had a hit list out on me — and the first thing on it would have been, “where is my baby Peanut?”
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.