Ep193 The Hard Dogs

[00:00:00] Episode 193. What do you do with the really difficult cases? We're gonna explore that this week. Chrissy, what do you do when a dog is really, really bad for grooming when we already know everything about him. We've been grooming him for years and he's just not going to get better. What do you do? We'll talk about that more.

[00:00:20] This is the Creating Great Grooming Dog Show. I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith. I am a master groomer behavior specialist, a certified professional dog trainer, certified behavior consultant for canines, a certified professional groomer. I am an instructor at Whole Pet Grooming Academy and I am the owner of Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire.

[00:00:37] And this my friends and colleagues, is the show where we talk about teaching dogs to be good for grooming and for other types of care. So what do we do? That one dog or maybe a couple dogs. But what do you do with the really hard cases? And I hear this a lot like Chrissy. Yeah, that's all great. Good and fine for the dogs who are just a little bit afraid.

[00:00:57] But what do you do with the dogs who are mean? What do you do with those dogs? What do you do with the dogs that have been groomed over and over again and I know them really well and I know they're never gonna get better. What do you do with them? So what we need to do with them is step back and look at it with a fresh set of eyes.

[00:01:18] And it's hard to do. It's really hard to do because if we saw that dog as a new customer, we would look with a fresh set of eyes. Every dog is an individual, so it's not like I can say, do X, Y, Z. Step 1, 2, 3, like, oh, aggressive for grooming. Let's look up with the book. Oh, page 1 22, that's this paragraph and we're all done.

[00:01:40] Like if that were true, we wouldn't have dog training. So we need to take a. Closer, look at this individual dog with a new set of eyes, and I want you to think about the idea that this dog is still having difficulty. No, Chrissy, he's not scared. He's mean. Ah, but that's fear. Aggression is fear. Aggression is fear based, and maybe they're really bold and they are not afraid of getting hurt by you, but they are ticked off.

[00:02:11] They are not comfortable with what you need to do. Oh. What's that? So you're saying they could be ticked off? Oh yeah. Yeah. An animal can be ticked off. But before we jump to that, let's think about why, before we jump to the conclusion that this may animal is just angry at us. Let's think about why. Why?

[00:02:34] How often has this dog been forced through a grooming? Because we don't have the customer service part lined up. It's really what it comes down to in a lot of cases, is being able to talk to our owners. We don't own these dogs. I don't live with that dog, so we need to be able to talk to our owners and get our owners on board and remember that owners have responsibilities.

[00:03:01] It's not just my responsibility. It's an owner's responsibility. So with the dog, let's say that we, that we are using the words like this dog is mean. Okay. First of all, I don't like the terminology because what we wanna do is we wanna describe what we see, observe, and report, right? What do we actually see?

[00:03:21] Um, any dog of any size can make themselves entirely untouchable. Think about that for a moment. So if this dog has allowed you to put it on it on the table, that dog is cooperating with you in some way. If this dog let you take it out of a crate, if you didn't have to pull that vari kennel apart or get a rabies snare to get that animal out, that animal is still cooperating with you.

[00:03:45] And I think we forget about that part and we start thinking he's just mean. If an animal has grabbed you and did not leave punctures, yeah. That dog wasn't trying to hurt you. That dog was literally trying to warn you like, I have teeth and they're sharp, and I could have hurt you. And we're like, blissfully unaware, like, la la la.

[00:04:08] Glad he missed. It's not the way it works. Okay. So we, even the dogs that you might think, oh, he's mean, that dog is having an issue with what we're doing. And I think that some of this comes from the idea that, um, all of the behavior problems that we're seeing, um, are a personality problem, right? That dog doesn't have a personality problem, right?

[00:04:35] It's not like he was just born, mean. There are some health issues that can affect a dog. Okay. So there could be a health problem. Oh yeah. But that's different than like, he's just mean dog. Oh, this dog is just a jerk. Um, I want you to think about the dog who's being really aggressive as he is trying to tell you, knock it off.

[00:04:56] Oh my God, every time I see you, I see you once a month or once every two months, and you do this, and you just keep pushing it. That dog is responding like a dog. We are in charge of what's going on in our grooming table, in our salons.

[00:05:12] Um, if you're an owner, I want you to think about like, listen, I have to set the tone. It's my job to set the tone for this grooming or for this procedure, whatever it is, and to try to help a dog feel safe. Feel safe if you are forcing them through. Because you think like, well, he's not really afraid, so I don't need to worry about him feeling safe.

[00:05:35] He doesn't feel safe. Aggression happens when a dog feels like things are getting out of control and they wanna get away. That's when aggression happens. Aggression is a fear response. If they're comfortable with everything you're doing, they very rarely become aggressive. That's really kind of a strange thought for many of us.

[00:05:57] However, the dog who's cooperating with us is giving us their permission, so why not spend a moment to ask for it and to encourage it, right? When I go for a right front foot and that dog shifts their weight so I can lift their right front foot. If that's cooperation, we want cooperation, so we have to start asking a little bit more.

[00:06:20] And those confident animals, when you give them the chance to, to tell them what's going on, a lot of the time, that makes all the difference in the world. So if we have a dog that we are convinced, I've groomed him so many times, he's never gonna get better, let's step back and say, what part of this process does this dog not like?

[00:06:42] What part of this process does this dog have difficulty with? Is it the whole thing? It's very rarely the whole thing, and if it is the whole thing, it probably has more to do with this dog in general and things going on at home than it does in the grooming shop. Right. Think about that for a minute. Not every problem is a grooming problem.

[00:07:03] If that dog cannot have people visit their house without worrying about them biting a visitor, why does that owner think it's okay to bring that dog into a grooming shop? That is not okay. Oh, well these people are professionals, so it's okay if my dog hurts them. No, we need to stop normalizing that. We need to start telling owners dog training is their responsibility, but I'm not asking you to just refuse people.

[00:07:34] I'm asking you to help people understand that they have a problem, that you would like to help them solve their problem. It's their problem. It's not your problem. The only two dogs on this planet I am in charge of are the ones who sleep in my bedroom. The rest of them I am responsible for when they're in my care, if I choose to bring them into my care, and that might come with some owner talking.

[00:08:04] Some customer service issues need to be addressed. So if you have a dog that you've been grooming for a long time. And you decide, you know what? I am gonna try to spend some time teaching this dog to be comfortable with this. It's gonna be a tough sell. So you need to talk to your owner first and say, what we've been doing doesn't seem to be helping.

[00:08:26] It's a tough talk. What we've been doing doesn't seem to be helping your dog is not improving. And owners will say, yeah, I know. I mean, he's a rescue. You've had this dog for however long, and we need to help them improve. We need to help them improve. And they say, well, I don't think that's possible. And I hear that a lot.

[00:08:47] I hear that from owners. I hear that from trainers. I hear that from groomers. I hear that from veterinarians like, oh, he's too old. But that dog is not getting any younger. I need an awful lot of dogs at like 12 or 13 with behavior problems because they're not getting any younger, they're not getting any healthier.

[00:09:06] And now what happens? What happens? That dog has become, um, so worried about grooming over the years? 'cause they never felt comfortable with it. We never made any progress. And now that they have some other health problems, that's usually when a groomer says things like. I can't do him anymore because I'm worried he's gonna hurt himself.

[00:09:30] It's time to go to the vet for sedation grooming, and I want you all to know that is a beautiful, beautiful dream. That's a myth, right? You're just passing that problem along to somebody else because no veterinarian is going to sedate a dog as if for surgery to get a grooming done on them on a regular basis.

[00:09:54] So what happens to that dog? What happens to that dog? Dogs that maybe they've been putting off dental work or other types of care because they're so worried about putting that dog under anesthesia? What happens to that dog? That dog becomes a terribly, terribly matted mess. Untouchable un grable, and that's not fair to the dog.

[00:10:16] So when I meet them later in life for that fresh set of eyes, which I'm asking you to do with your own clientele, as a fresh set of eyes go, you know what? Let's circle back and do some of this other other stuff. Let's try something else. Let's try to help this dog feel comfortable with it. So how do we do that?

[00:10:36] We're gonna talk about that in the next part. If you're enjoying the show, please remember to follow, like, subscribe. You can watch the show on YouTube creating great grooming dogs.

[00:10:45] You can go to the website creating group grooming dogs.com, and you can also find it wherever you're listening to podcasts. But. Share it with a friend. Maybe just one episode. Share it with a friend, share it with a groomer, share it with somebody in your dog's life. But please remember to share it. So what do we do with the dog who, like I said, has been a problem for a long, long time?

[00:11:09] And when I have that fresh set of eyes, 'cause that's usually when I meet them. The thing is that if we're doing it right, dog grooming should be about as interesting as watching paint dry. You are not gonna see videos of me holding a dog or working on a dog who's flailing and barking and growling, or trying to bite me because I don't let things get that far.

[00:11:35] I don't let 'em get that far, but how many of us feel limited by the idea that I have to get this trim done, I have to get this grooming done, I have to get this done, and I want you to let go of some of that. There are two things as dog groomers when we're grooming that we actually have to complete. Two.

[00:11:56] One is if we wet that dog down and everything was fine and we got them soapy and we're trying to rinse 'em off, and suddenly they're like overwhelmed. We still have to get the soap off. We have to get the shampoo off. We can try to work around that in a bunch of different ways, but we can't leave shampoo on because that will cause skin issues.

[00:12:18] So that's one time, but we can avoid that. By knowing how this dog responds to water all over them, the sprayer, or if they only can handle like a certain amount of time. So some of our history taking can help us avoid that issue. That's, that's the one, one of the times when we actually have to finish something, we have to complete it, but we can still proceed really gently.

[00:12:44] Maybe that's gonna be the cup of water or something like that instead of the sprayer, but. We can't leave him. Let him go away with soap. The other time that as a groomer, we might need to actually complete something, is if we have to apply first aid. First aid has to happen. Okay? Aside from that, oh, I don't care if you only trimmed his left ear, then he goes home looking like crazy.

[00:13:11] That's okay. Everybody take a moment. It's okay to let a dog go home Looking less than perfect. It's okay to let 'em go home. Looking a little bit crazy. I know we don't want to, we want the dogs to look great, but, and here's the thing, some dogs are not well prepared for our services, and that's a customer service issue.

[00:13:38] That's a customer service issue to help owners understand your dog isn't well prepared for this. You know, um, part of that is us talking to them before they even get there. I'm gonna assume that all dogs are going to have an issue with grooming until they indicate to me that they're fine with it. We should assume they're gonna have trouble with it.

[00:13:59] And there are a lot of myths out there. So owners often think that dogs just hate being groomed, and that's just the way things are. They think that this is what we do every day. . I will say there are a lot of groomers out there working with a lot of dogs that aren't good for grooming, but it's because they don't know how to help those dogs be better.

[00:14:18] Okay. That's not just our job to work with dogs who are trying to bite us. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. But owners often think it is. So helping owners understand that that's not our job. That's not what we do all day. Um, I'm not here to get hurt. Um, it's not like you can just say, oh yeah, he doesn't let us touch him at home.

[00:14:38] So that's why we bring him here. That is unacceptable. For the owners who are listening, they're like, but what do I do? That's okay. I understand that this is the first time. You might have heard that. That's unacceptable, but now we need to tell you what to do. And that is we need to work on teaching this dog to be comfortable with stuff.

[00:14:57] We need to figure out what makes this dog tick. What is this dog worried about? A lot, a lot of dogs are not comfortable with people reaching around them and imagine trying to pick up a dog without reaching around him. I know a bunch of people just went, oh yeah. Right. You know, I mean, even if owners are working on things that are close to some of the procedures that have to be done at the animal hospital or things that have to be done at the groomer, reaching around your dog and teaching him to be comfortable with it, that's a big one.

[00:15:29] Um, that helping a dog feel comfortable with stuff. And also, here's a, here's some tough love for the groomers out there. I know. And, and the trainers and the owners. Forcing dogs through it while they're literally saying, stop, stop, stop. I'm not comfortable with this. Causes the aggression. So the dog that you're saying, I groomed him for a long time or I know he's never gonna get better, is probably because.

[00:15:56] You're continuously teaching him to be aggressive about it, and we need to step back and start over. Start fresh as if you just met him. How can I help this dog be comfortable with it? What is he really worried about? If this dog isn't comfortable with me petting him? He's probably not gonna be real comfortable with me getting in between every little toe, right?

[00:16:18] He's probably not gonna be comfortable with all of the other things that happen with this procedure that happen with grooming. So we start off with calm, calm, comfortable, and cooperative. And if that dog isn't calm even coming in, then that's some of the things we're gonna work on. That owner has some homework, okay?

[00:16:40] Now, as a groomer. You might not be comfortable doing any sort of training, and that's okay. I want you to embrace that. If you are not comfortable doing it, then let's help you find a trainer to send them to or somebody else to send them to, to help them solve their problem. Anytime I refer to somebody else.

[00:17:01] That customer is receiving good customer service from me, even if I did not make money off them, and someone else did that. Customer remembers this person tried to help me solve my problem. I. This person sent me to a trainer. This person sent me to a different type of groomer. This person sent me to my vet.

[00:17:21] This person tried to help me solve my problem, and that is good for my business because that person sends their friends to me and that other business suddenly stops seeing me as competition, but a colleague. I refer back and forth with lots of friends who are groomers, you know? So I want you to think about, it's not just about telling people no, and it's not about losing business.

[00:17:47] It's about setting them up for success and helping them find the information they need to help their dog be successful. And for the owners who are resistant to that, you really have to drive home the idea that this is for safety. I'm using sharp tools and your dog can be injured. It, your dog is not rendered safe just by putting a muzzle on him.

[00:18:11] Uh, it's not gonna be safer if we have three people, right? That this is for safety and I am in charge of the safety of this grooming. I am responsible, okay? If that dog gets hurt. And I saw something recently on Facebook and it was, I mean, it's not my fault that the dog, you know, got hurt during grooming.

[00:18:35] And I'm like kind of in between on that. 'cause this was a dog who was getting really pushed and forced through a grooming that was biting its stuff and they kept going. So yeah, as a professional it, it really kind of is your fault if that dog gut hurt because you didn't help them calm down and you aren't working with them.

[00:18:55] Expert level professional animal handling is to help dogs and cats and other animals to be calm, to calm them down. It's just common sense animal handling with every other animal except for dogs, and I think that that stems from this old idea. That, you know, dogs just need a strong leader or something, and that, you know, everything they do is just to, to see if they can push their limits.

[00:19:21] No, they just don't want people in between their toes and they need to learn that that's safe. They need to learn that it's okay, even if they still don't want it. Maybe they still don't want somebody in between their toes or lifting up their tail, but they can learn that it's safe and they can learn to allow us to do it if we're patient and if we do the right homework.

[00:19:41] Okay. So if there's a dog that you're like, oh man, I mean, I've groom for so long, I can't imagine that he's gonna change. I need you to step back and imagine that you're just meeting this dog for the very first time. And what kind of things do we often hear? Oh, he must have had a bad experience someplace.

[00:20:00] Yeah. If he's been aggressive the entire time, he's had his entire grooming career, right? Yes. He has been having a bad experience. If he's been pushed through grooming, he has been having a bad experience.

[00:20:14] It's not about whether or not you hurt him or you were mean to him. It's about how he feels about being forced through grooming. And the dogs that are really aggressive about it, in my experience, are ones who've been forced. Over and over and over again. Backtrack from that. We don't force dogs through grooming.

[00:20:36] It's unprofessional. Oh, did Chrissy just say that? I did. Forcing dogs through grooming, despite all of their, their worries and all of their fears and any aggression is unprofessional. And I think until recently, I might have given people a free pass, but this is really well known stuff right now.

[00:20:55] Okay. If you're doing any sort of continuing ed for grooming or for training, like cooperative care is a hot topic, you should at least know a little bit about it. Um, I'm here for everybody who wants to learn about it, of course, but, but the fact of the matter is it's unprofessional to force dogs through grooming Needs to stop.

[00:21:15] Needs to stop. There's nothing about grooming that absolutely 100% needs to get done today, and we need to let go of that idea, and we need owners to let go of that idea. If owners want perfect trims on their dog, they can help us teach that dog to be good for it, or they can help us by bringing their dog in often enough and following our recommendations so that we can teach the dog to be good for it.

[00:21:42] But the fact of the matter is. It falls into how comfortable is this dog? Does this dog trust us? And like I said, I meet an awful lot of dogs when they're 12 or 13 and they have all the health problems and they can't be sedated for grooming. And they've been turned away now, and I can get them to be good for me, maybe not perfect.

[00:22:03] You know, some of these dogs are in cognitive decline. They don't think through things very well anymore, but I can teach them enough. To be able to get the important stuff done, and their owners can learn enough to understand why Fluffy can't look perfect today. Why they're a 15-year-old dog that has seizures if she gets excited, um, can't just have a full grooming today.

[00:22:26] Right? So I want you to think about those dogs with a fresh set of eyes. And if we're doing it right, it's about as interesting as watching paint dry. Uh, we need to stop pushing dogs through grooming. All right. You'll not see videos of me holding onto a dog's foot while it screams. You'll never see me posting videos of like, oh, look at this husky who's screaming.

[00:22:50] 'cause he's a husky. That's not okay. We need to get away from that. It's unprofessional. We need to get away from that because in that moment, that animal is learning to hate grooming. That animal is learning that, okay? So crying and screaming doesn't make her stop. What if I use my teeth?

[00:23:10] Oh, air snaps didn't make her stop. What if I use my teeth hard? Oh, scratching her. Didn't stop. I guess I really just need to sink my teeth in full depth. Maybe I need four or five bites in a row. We're literally teaching them to become aggressive, so the dogs that are becoming more and more aggressive, it's a tough sell, but it's us, and I've been there and I've done it, and I know it's hard to hear because it requires some self-reflection.

[00:23:39] It's important for us to know, so when we talk to owners, let's say it's the dog that you've been grooming for a long time. The way I address owners is, and hopefully this works for you. I have been doing some classes. I've been listening to a podcast or reading a book or whatever, and I learned some new stuff that I want to try with your dog because your dog is not improving.

[00:24:05] Many, many dogs that I groom would've improved already. And I went looking for new tactics to try to help your dog improve 'cause your dog is not getting better for this. Now what that does is it tells an owner, oh. You were at a conference or reading a book or thinking about my dog, you were thinking about Bella while you were doing that.

[00:24:26] You know, like you are showing them that you are invested in their dog. And that has real power with our owners. They're like, oh, well, okay. And then you tell them like, I wanna try something different. What we've been doing isn't working and it's unsafe. I don't wanna continue doing it that way. We know it doesn't work, so therefore we shouldn't continue doing it that way.

[00:24:49] I wanna try something different. Um, maybe it's some meet and treats that you start off with as if they're a puppy all over again. Can you just come in, hang out with me, we're gonna give some cookies and stuff and go home. And you might say, oh, with a dog who's 10? Yeah. With a dog who's 10. Because I often meet them.

[00:25:07] I meet these dogs that other people have, have sent away. I'm the, I'm the one that they come to when the vet says, I can't sedate your dog for grooming with all of his health issues. No, that's not gonna happen. I'm the one they go to, and when they do. I wanna start off with building a relationship, helping the dog feel comfortable and then building up some confidence that, you know, oh, okay, it's pretty safe if she touches me here.

[00:25:32] It's okay if she does this. And gently guide them into being more calm, comfortable, and cooperative. And when we talk to our owners and say, I wanna try something new, I'm no longer willing to do the old way 'cause it's clearly not working for your dog. It's not working, it's, it's not doing this dog a service.

[00:25:52] Even if that dog went home and didn't have any more mats and was clean, you were not helping that dog. Oh, that's such a tough pill to swallow. What do you mean I wasn't helping him? Of course I was helping him. I mean, look at him now. He's clean and he doesn't have any tangles. 'cause Matt's hurt. Mats do hurt.

[00:26:10] But, um. If that dog walks away thinking, maybe I should bite her when I walk in the door next time, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should bite my owner before he tries to get me outta the car. Right? Think about it. Think about it. We have, we have not done that dog of service if they're always getting worse. So our biggest step is to step back, reevaluate, and accept the fact that what we were doing hasn't been helping, and it's a hard one.

[00:26:43] And I'm here for you. All right. Um, remember this is a creating great Grooming dog show. If you wanna learn more, you can find me at creating great grooming dogs.com. You can find that on Facebook too. There's Facebook group. Um, if you would like to take one of my classes, I do teach the Master Groomer Behavior Specialist Diploma Program at the whole Pet Grooming Academy, which is a diploma program from a school in New Hampshire, an official school, a licensed school, and that's for any groomer who wants to move on into specializing in behavior. That's an entirely online class.

[00:27:18] It is four eight week classes and it runs live. Zoom calls every week with online content. My next class is starting up in April. So if you'd like more information, you can contact me and have a great week. Bye.