After The Last Dog

Nobody teaches you how to lead a grooming business, you just end up doing it. In the final episode of the Legacy or Liability series, Jennifer gets personal (without getting confessional) about the relational side of what you inherited when you opened, bought, or took over a salon: the clients still bracing for the last owner's mistakes, the team carrying in habits from every job before yours, and your own default version of "boss" that you copied from whoever you last worked for. From inheriting a town's scar tissue after a hygiene-scandal salon sat empty for six months, to why training keeps failing when there's no system behind it, to the handbook realization that changed everything, this episode is about recognizing which people problems are actually yours to fix, and which ones you're just paying down for somebody else.

Growing Groomers email sign up https://www.growinggroomers.com/signup

Schedule a call: https://calendly.com/growing-groomers/better-training-in-salons

Growing GroomersWebsite https://www.growinggroomers.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/growinggroomers/

Hiring and Onboarding Masterclass

With 25% off Hiring and Onboarding Masterclass

Introduction to the Salon https://www.growinggroomers.com/offers/qPF5DrfV

After The Last Dog Website https://www.afterthelastdog.com/

Bather Brusher Course https://www.growinggroomers.com/offers/EawtRyyV

“I’m not a manager.”

It’s something grooming business owners say all the time. But owning the business means you still need to understand what each role is responsible for, what good work looks like, where employees have decision-making authority, and how you know expectations are actually being met.

In this episode of After the Last Dog, Dara shares how she learned that having a few employees who naturally “got her” was not the same as having a management system.

We talk about what happens when growth exposes unclear expectations, why “they should know” can become a dangerous assumption, and how owners can accidentally recreate pieces of the workplaces they once wanted to escape.

You’ll also hear why inspecting what you expect is not about micromanaging. It is about making sure the business your team experiences matches the business you believe you built.

This episode is part of The Business We Inherited: Legacy or Liability?

Ask yourself: Have I built a business where someone can succeed without having to think exactly like me?

Why do good groomers quit, and why do some never sign on at all? In Part 3 of 4 of The Business We Inherited: Legacy or Liability, Jennifer Oppel, founder of Growing Groomers and creator of Missouri's first pet grooming apprenticeship and RTI program, looks at the physical side of running a dog grooming business through the lens of teams and training. Your tubs, tables, dryers, products, and mobile grooming vans are quietly training your team every day, and the habits they teach get passed from one groomer to the next. Jennifer explains how grooming salon safety gaps turn into groomer back pain, burnout, turnover, and lost profit, why not every setup is an automatic yes for every dog, and how to tell the inherited habits worth keeping from the ones that are costing you. If you're a grooming salon owner, franchisee, or mobile grooming business owner, especially one who never groomed before owning the business, you'll walk away with a simple team huddle you can run tomorrow to build written standards, improve groomer retention, and keep your salon running safely even on your day off.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Introduction to the Salon course: growinggroomers.com/offers/qPF5DrfV
• Hiring and Onboarding Masterclass, 25% off: Hiring and Onboarding Masterclass
• Report covers for your written standards (affiliate): amzn.to/4vsSmRj
• Bather Brusher Course: growinggroomers.com/offers/EawtRyyV
• The Whole Pet Grooming Academy (continuing education for experienced groomers): wholepetnh.com
• Book a call with Jennifer: calendly.com/growing-groomers/better-training-in-salons
• Join the Growing Groomers email list: growinggroomers.com/signup
• Growing Groomers: growinggroomers.com
• Pet Grooming Apprenticeship: petgroomingapprenticeship.com
• After the Last Dog: afterthelastdog.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/growinggroomers

Research referenced: Work-related musculoskeletal disorders among pet groomers, Healthcare (2026), International Grooming Society Global Groomer Health Study, and Rural Veterinary Outreach on ear plucking.

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A full schedule does not automatically mean you have a healthy, profitable grooming business.

In this episode of After the Last Dog, Dara looks at the physical side of a grooming business from the owner’s perspective. Your tables, tubs, dryers, layout, equipment, and workspace are not just things you own, they shape what services you can deliver, how much work your team can realistically take on, what you can promise clients, and whether your revenue is truly sustainable.

To often, business owners measure capacity by what fits on the calendar, but an open appointment is not always capacity. If your people, space, equipment, and workflow cannot consistently support the work you are booking, the business may be generating revenue while quietly operating beyond its limits.

This episode asks owners to think differently about physical legacy and liability:

• Are you confusing a full calendar with true service capacity?
• Is your shop helping you deliver the business you are selling?
• Are employees using extra effort to cover for physical limits in the business?
• Is deferred equipment, maintenance, or space investment creating a false sense of profit?
• If your strongest employees were not there to make it work, what could your shop actually deliver?

You do not have to rebuild your business overnight, but as an owner, you do need to understand the difference between what your business can sell and what it can responsibly deliver.

Because a legacy is not leaving the next employee a shop they have to survive in, it is leaving them a business built to support good work, sustainable revenue, and better care for pets.

After the Last Dog is a podcast for grooming business owners, franchise owners, pet-care leaders, and anyone ready to look honestly at what the workday reveals after the appointments are finished and the last dog has gone home.

Twenty years of experience can quietly be one year of experience, repeated twenty times if nobody ever stopped to ask whether the way your salon actually runs still makes sense. In this episode of After the Last Dog, Jennifer breaks down the difference between a real operational system and inherited motion: the leftover habits, workarounds, and shortcuts that got baked into your business before you were paying close attention. From fast-tracked online certifications to job titles handed out without any real leadership training to inconsistent grooming terminology across your own team, this episode walks through the blind spots that quietly turn a busy salon into a fragile one, and hands you a five-question audit that's part of what coaching clients use to tell the difference between a system you'd build on purpose and one you simply never questioned.

• Schedule a call for more info: https://calendly.com/growing-groomers/better-training-in-salons
• Hiring and Onboarding Masterclass With 25% off Hiring and Onboarding Masterclass
• Onboarding and Training Checklist ($9)
• Business Coaching https://www.growinggroomers.com/offers/BUiqZCEG
• Introduction to the Salon https://www.growinggroomers.com/offers/qPF5DrfV
• Growing GroomersWebsite https://www.growinggroomers.com/
• After The Last Dog Website https://www.afterthelastdog.com/

For too long, parts of the grooming industry have treated exhaustion, physical pain, silence, impossible pace, and “figuring it out” as proof that someone is committed enough to belong. We have praised the people who stay late, take every difficult dog, carry the team, and push through no matter what it costs them. We have called that toughness. We have called it dedication. Sometimes, we have even called it professionalism.

But what if it is not a badge of honor? What if it is evidence that the business has asked someone to carry a burden it should have addressed?

This episode of After the Last Dog asks owners to look at the work we are offering people. Are we giving them a chance to learn, grow, speak up, and build a future? Or are we handing them the same confusion, pressure, physical wear-and-tear, and “figure it out” culture that the last person inherited?

Legacy is not protecting every hardship that came before us. It is not repeating old ways simply because they are familiar, or because they helped someone survive at another time. A legacy takes what was valuable, learns from what was difficult, and leaves the work safer, stronger, more thoughtful, and more sustainable for the next person.

We all need to decide what ends with us.

Deloitte Survey Gen Z and Millennials

Somebody in your shop asks one of your groomers about something they did, maybe a newer person, still new enough to question things. And the groomer looks at them surprised: "that's how I do it." Not defensive, just genuinely caught off guard, like why would you question this? In this episode, Jennifer Oppel (founder of Growing Groomers and creator of the first Missouri pet grooming apprenticeship program and related curriculum) breaks down why salon owners inherit cultures they never questioned, the two owners who can't see what's in front of them (the one who stepped into a business already running, and the dreamer building on excitement), and how to take back the standard without blowing up your team. If you've never stopped to ask whether this is actually how grooming works, this one's for you.

Bather Brusher Course (set the safety standard, stop line & guardrails — the worksheet makes you define them): Bather Brusher Course

Introduction to the Salon https://www.growinggroomers.com/offers/qPF5DrfV

Hiring and Onboarding Masterclass

With 25% off Hiring and Onboarding Masterclass

Whole Pet Grooming Academy https://wholepetnh.com/

Schedule a call: https://calendly.com/growing-groomers/better-training-in-salons

Growing GroomersWebsite https://www.growinggroomers.com/

Apprenticeship Website https://petgroomingapprenticeship.com/

After The Last Dog Website https://www.afterthelastdog.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/growinggroomers/

Why do I keep giving chances when I know better?

Being understanding is part of being a good leader. But what happens when the grace you keep giving one employee quietly becomes extra work for everyone else?

In this episode of After the Last Dog, we’re talking honestly about the employee you care about, worry about, and may be afraid to lose, even though her lateness, personal struggles, or workplace conflict are beginning to shape the entire day.

This is not about becoming cold or expecting people to leave their lives at the door. It is about noticing when your dependable employees are skipping lunch, taking extra dogs, staying late, and carrying problems leadership has been postponing.

If there is a conversation that keeps following you home, this episode is for you.

The question is not whether you should care. It is: Who is paying for the understanding you keep giving?

The Business We Inherited

Legacy or Liability?

Every grooming business has an official operating manual and an unofficial one. The unofficial version is revealed through what gets rewarded, tolerated, questioned, or ignored.

In this episode of After the Last Dog, Dara examines what business owners inherit from former employers, mentors, industry traditions, early survival decisions, and even earlier versions of themselves. From booking and training to equipment and communication, familiar practices can quietly become liabilities as a business grows.

Follow one dog through an ordinary workday and ask: What did this appointment require that the way we currently work did not make room for?

Back on August 5th, we talked about the unicorn hunt. Today we go deeper into why that unicorn keeps slipping through your fingers.

Ever wonder why you can't find just one good person to run your salon while you're gone? It's not just a tight labor market or a run of bad luck. In this episode, Jennifer pulls back the curtain on the hiring blind spot almost no salon owner talks about: the subconscious patterns — low standards, over-responsibility, scarcity panic, and what she calls "crap fitting" — that quietly sabotage good hiring decisions long before a job post ever goes live.

Jennifer gets personal about her own years stuck in freeze mode, the burnout that followed, and the discernment she gained on the other side of it, then breaks down exactly what "qualified" should mean for your specific culture, whether you're hiring for leadership, artistry, longevity, or growth. If you've ever hired someone on confidence, beautiful photos, or a loyal client following only to watch it fall apart in ninety days, this episode names exactly why, and gives you a real system to fix it.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Hiring and Onboarding Masterclass — 25% off with code HIR25
• Schedule a Call with Jennifer
• Sign Up for Growing Groomers Emails
• Growing Groomers Website
• Missouri Pet Grooming Apprenticeship Program
• Growing Groomers on Facebook
• After the Last Dog Website

Mentions & Affiliate Links

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
• Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker
• Lavela WS 1265 Lavender Supplement — for sleep & stress
• Tim Fletcher — Understanding and Overcoming Complex Trauma