snorks4lyfe
New member
So today I had a decently stacked schedule, nothing I couldn’t handle but I did have to go quickly with a few dogs, one being a 9 year old husky who was being expressed through a bath and brush due to some pretty bad kennel aggression. The pet parent came in at 9:30 am and told me her husky had a lot of compaction in his chest and a significant amount of shedding, when I did my little assessment of him his hair was coarse and felt like a terrier maybe, and his chest definitely had thick hair but not any kind of compaction that I could see or feel. I didn’t say anything to the pet parent at the time and figured she would be happy with my work when I was done anyways, so it would be ok.
This husky had a history of being bad about nails, and mom made an emphasis on the nails being short. I let mom know that because he was an express it would be about 45-50 minutes. Now this is a medium sized husky who is very skinny and light, about 45 pounds maybe, when I put him on the table he was already acting wirey, he flailed his decently long legs in every direction. When I did get a loop on him, I decided a cone was the best bet. I dropped my elbow under his tail and butt and started cutting his nails, he kicked and jumped and stepped on my head but again he was small and wasn’t super strong either, just a decent amount of annoyance. I had to have someone hold him and I ended up getting kicked square in the nose, that sucked, but a hazard of the job.
In the bath he was even more jumpy, he flailed and kicked and screamed and flopped and fell, and became a serious hazard to himself, along with trying to bite the water and throwing his open mouth in any direction he pleased, this is another hazard of the job. I mark this as his second strike in my mind now, I think, if he’s not capable of safely standing and doing this groom, if I have to consistently prevent him from harming me or himself, then he is no longer safe to groom.
When I moved him to the drying table it was solidified for me, I kept my composure the best I could even with the few times he leaped straight from my arms to dangle his back legs off the table, I held him and comforted him the best that I could. No amount of reassurance, or slowness, or patience, or snapping made this dog behave any better whatsoever, and he simply was too much of a risk without the proper restraints and I simply don’t have those at my job. I called the pet parent at 10:00 and told her it would be about 15-20 more minutes, the exact amount of time I needed to brush him, and I TRIED, his hair was too coarse for the furrminator brush to properly get through, it snagged on the texture of his hair, it was weird, so I brushed with a rubber brush, a slick brush, all the brushes I had at my disposal and this dog lost basically no hair. But I brushed anyways for the amount of time promised by my job, throughout the brushing he was still consistently trying to thrust himself over the edge of the table to his doom.
I decided at that point to let this pet parent know we wouldn’t be able to take her baby anymore and prepped a list of the best recommended vet groomers and private groomers in our area. The pet parent came in about 10:58, I sat with her baby while he screamed and threw himself at every dog and person and flipped over himself and overall just tried to get his little body wherever he could to spread chaos. I was able to calm him down by sitting him between my legs and just very softly running my hand over his whole face, the only calm time I received.
When the pet parent came in (at 10:58) she immediately asked if I even bathed her dog, I was a bit shocked but I assured her that yes, I washed her dog. She didn’t even give me a chance to open the short door dividing us, she just bent her body over it to very insistently run her arms and hands through his coat, over his coat, it seemed like she was looking for loose hair. She kept insisting I did not wash her dog. So I took a deep breath and kept a smile on and checked the computer, I let her know that she dropped her dog off at 9:28 am, I started at 9:30 and I told her that her dogs groom was going to end around 10:20, that was the amount of time I had told her when she dropped off. She said “whatever” and had an EXTREME attitude about all of it, pulling her dog around, huffing and muttering under her breath, still leaning down and checking her dogs coat for any kind of mistake in the groom. I took a deep breath and put on my sympathetic customer service smile and told her that I regretted to inform her that we would no longer to able to take her baby at our salon, she cut me off before I could inform her about recommended vets and she started exclaiming that he’d been going there for four whole years! She’d never heard of him being bad! (He has many notes about being bad, and there were many notes explaining her anger towards groomers and bathers telling her that he’s bad) she said this was stupid and left, throwing many other unsavory words and comments over her shoulder.
Later my manager came in and informed me she made a complaint, she said HER DOG WAS STILL WET. The dog she accused me of NEVER BATHING, the dog she felt over furiously when I gave him back to her, the dog I made SURE was dry because I KNEW she would try to find something to complain about. We can laugh it off, but how RUDE can you be?! I was nothing but smiles and politeness and gave you back a damn good looking and smelling dog. Maybe it’s me, but I think that the pet parents have gotten a little more hostile lately
This husky had a history of being bad about nails, and mom made an emphasis on the nails being short. I let mom know that because he was an express it would be about 45-50 minutes. Now this is a medium sized husky who is very skinny and light, about 45 pounds maybe, when I put him on the table he was already acting wirey, he flailed his decently long legs in every direction. When I did get a loop on him, I decided a cone was the best bet. I dropped my elbow under his tail and butt and started cutting his nails, he kicked and jumped and stepped on my head but again he was small and wasn’t super strong either, just a decent amount of annoyance. I had to have someone hold him and I ended up getting kicked square in the nose, that sucked, but a hazard of the job.
In the bath he was even more jumpy, he flailed and kicked and screamed and flopped and fell, and became a serious hazard to himself, along with trying to bite the water and throwing his open mouth in any direction he pleased, this is another hazard of the job. I mark this as his second strike in my mind now, I think, if he’s not capable of safely standing and doing this groom, if I have to consistently prevent him from harming me or himself, then he is no longer safe to groom.
When I moved him to the drying table it was solidified for me, I kept my composure the best I could even with the few times he leaped straight from my arms to dangle his back legs off the table, I held him and comforted him the best that I could. No amount of reassurance, or slowness, or patience, or snapping made this dog behave any better whatsoever, and he simply was too much of a risk without the proper restraints and I simply don’t have those at my job. I called the pet parent at 10:00 and told her it would be about 15-20 more minutes, the exact amount of time I needed to brush him, and I TRIED, his hair was too coarse for the furrminator brush to properly get through, it snagged on the texture of his hair, it was weird, so I brushed with a rubber brush, a slick brush, all the brushes I had at my disposal and this dog lost basically no hair. But I brushed anyways for the amount of time promised by my job, throughout the brushing he was still consistently trying to thrust himself over the edge of the table to his doom.
I decided at that point to let this pet parent know we wouldn’t be able to take her baby anymore and prepped a list of the best recommended vet groomers and private groomers in our area. The pet parent came in about 10:58, I sat with her baby while he screamed and threw himself at every dog and person and flipped over himself and overall just tried to get his little body wherever he could to spread chaos. I was able to calm him down by sitting him between my legs and just very softly running my hand over his whole face, the only calm time I received.
When the pet parent came in (at 10:58) she immediately asked if I even bathed her dog, I was a bit shocked but I assured her that yes, I washed her dog. She didn’t even give me a chance to open the short door dividing us, she just bent her body over it to very insistently run her arms and hands through his coat, over his coat, it seemed like she was looking for loose hair. She kept insisting I did not wash her dog. So I took a deep breath and kept a smile on and checked the computer, I let her know that she dropped her dog off at 9:28 am, I started at 9:30 and I told her that her dogs groom was going to end around 10:20, that was the amount of time I had told her when she dropped off. She said “whatever” and had an EXTREME attitude about all of it, pulling her dog around, huffing and muttering under her breath, still leaning down and checking her dogs coat for any kind of mistake in the groom. I took a deep breath and put on my sympathetic customer service smile and told her that I regretted to inform her that we would no longer to able to take her baby at our salon, she cut me off before I could inform her about recommended vets and she started exclaiming that he’d been going there for four whole years! She’d never heard of him being bad! (He has many notes about being bad, and there were many notes explaining her anger towards groomers and bathers telling her that he’s bad) she said this was stupid and left, throwing many other unsavory words and comments over her shoulder.
Later my manager came in and informed me she made a complaint, she said HER DOG WAS STILL WET. The dog she accused me of NEVER BATHING, the dog she felt over furiously when I gave him back to her, the dog I made SURE was dry because I KNEW she would try to find something to complain about. We can laugh it off, but how RUDE can you be?! I was nothing but smiles and politeness and gave you back a damn good looking and smelling dog. Maybe it’s me, but I think that the pet parents have gotten a little more hostile lately
