Puppy Program?

[thejoshbro]

With the influx of puppies I see at seven months old who have never been groomed before, I’ve (my bosses mostly) decided to start offering a puppy program.

Four sessions, where we build from the bottom up, ending with a “puppies first full groom”.

I’m a new groomer, been doing this for less than a year, and this is something new to me. I’ve done puppies before, obvi, but a program built by me is new!

Four appts, each a week-two weeks apart, desensitization and skill building as the focus.
1- bath and environmental desensitization
2-bath and brush out, continued desensitization
3- b&b with a face/feet/fanny +desensitization
4-puppies “first groom”

Thinking of also offering this for dogs who need “rehabbed” with grooming as well.

There’s going to be all the small print like “might not be able to do this all” yada yada.

what advice, suggestions or experience do y’all have for this? Any help I can get would be awesome! I’m not the biggest fan of puppies on the table so any help would be a lifesaver.

 

[thegiant]

@thejoshbro I want to eventually leave corporate and go solo once I feel like a good enough groomer, and I've thought of doing the same thing!

There's lots of puppy mill dogs here, and it's also a low income community, so the two together also gives us a huge amount of 6-9mo old puppies getting groomed for the first time.

I've even thought of some type of incentive program, where like if they actually stick with it and complete this puppy/densitization program, then the following groom is heavily discounted if they book within 4-8 weeks.

I don't have suggestions, just wanted to say I love the idea.

 

[matthew123]

@thejoshbro More commenting to see what people say rather than having intelligent input here. I’ve started my own shop in my home. I’m also advertising a puppy kindergarten type grooming experience with an eye towards a program like you’re suggesting. I haven’t laid out exactly would happen at each visit because my thinking was that each dog would be different and have to have a program tailored to them.

As in a 14 week old would need a different program than a 10 month old first groom dog. But I’d love to see what others are doing with regard to this.

 

[mango]

@thejoshbro I'm a trainer rather than groomer, but I wanted to say how much I love it.

I built a training plan for a salon here for happy visits and training visits.

Happy visit is just desensitization to the stimulus of a salon with lots of high value and Jack pot treats but no service done. We do five to ten minutes to keep the pup under threshold.

We progress up a sensory visit which is feeling the brushes and getting to investigate tools with lots of treats. If the dog does well we use an electric tooth brush to simulate the feeling of the Clippers, and gentle paw interaction

From there, bath and brush with lots of treats, doing our best to not overwhelm the dog.

Then it's full groom

Dogs can book as many at each level as they need to desensitize the dog. I tend to recommend three happy and sensory visits prior to an actual bath personally, but it totally depends on the dog's personality. Some need more some less, and you can tailor training visits to the individual dog's needs.

 

[thejoshbro]

@mango That honestly sounds really good! I offer to let peoples dogs “hang out” if they really need it, putting the dog in a kennel where they can watch me groom If you don’t mind sharing, what was the ballpark pricing for these? My bosses tend to want to over price like we’re in a big city when we actually live in a rural area

 

[mango]

@thejoshbro Yeah! So with happy visits and sensory they are leashed and with their groomer for part of the visit, then kenneled at increasing increments.

Happy visits are 20 including tax, sensory are 25, first bath is 20% off their normal weight based pricing, and the full groom is a special as well at 20% off of the weight based pricing.

 

[xekuter]

@thejoshbro Would be absolutely lovely if owners go for it! Unfortunately so many don’t seem to understand that grooming is necessary period, never mind desensitizing to it, and I’m not sure anything would really change their minds when they don’t even want to book one appointment. I feel like I probably see the worst of the worst at corporate of course, though that might be area specific too.

Would be cool to have a booklet to go with it! Especially if the sessions are sold as a package. The booklet could have tips for desensitizing at home as well as report card pages or like a punch card for the sessions themselves? Maybe a place to put a ‘graduation’/full groom pic?

 

[xemketqualode]

@thejoshbro I'm an owner, and even though the groomers tell me my dog does OK, I know he hates the dryer. He's a poodle mix, and will 1000% need the dryer his whole life. While I'm working on our own desensitization, I would still pay out the ass for a program like this. Because I love my dog and he deserves to be comfortable for grooming.

I don't have any advice, sorry, but just wanted to say I love the concept.

Edit: Actually what I've been trying with my dog is even just having him be around the dryer and stuff without him panicking, which often means turning it on without him having had a bath. It might be useful to try a super beginner class for the dogs who really have a true fear of grooming rather than pups who are "bad" at getting groomed.

 

[edisonraj]

@thejoshbro I think that’s an amazing idea! I took my pup at 3 months for a first full puppy groom, but I would have loved to have a progressive approach to puppy grooming.