Ani Corless is a dog groomer and the owner of the NYC-based business Luxury Groomer. Unlike most groomers, Ani goes into her clients' homes to groom their dogs. Annie and she discuss her path to becoming a groomer, some common mistakes that well-intentioned dog owners make when grooming their own dogs, and the various ways that in-home grooming can benefit dogs, dog owners, and groomers alike. Learn more about Ani at luxurygroomer.com Annie and Ani discuss the annual "Creative Grooming" competition held each year in Hershey, PA. Annie produced a short video about this event for Vice.com in 2011. youtube.com/watch?v=yq2f5ACx2fM Interested in pursuing a grooming career? PetGroomer.com offers both a list of US programs and several informative articles on selecting a school. petgroomer.com/schools/ petgroomer.com/selecting-grooming-school/ Sponsor: Is your Inbox a mess? You need SANEBOX! Get a free trial & $15 off when you sign up at Schoolforthedogs.com/sane

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Partial Transcript:



Annie:

So today I am interviewing a groomer. Her name is “Annie” like me, although she spells it, uh, Ani where I spell mine, the more, the more normal, boring way. And Ani is an in-home groomer in New York City. She goes to people's houses. I'm really interested in in-home grooming this concept of a groomer who comes to you for a variety of reasons, some of which we will get into in this episode. But the main reason is I think it can really be the most dog-friendly way to have your dog groomed. I think a lot of dogs get stressed out going to the groomer and you don't know exactly what's happening to them at the groomer. And the longer that I do dog training professionally, the more respect I have for groomers who really take the time to be thoughtful about how they're handling dogs during grooming and how the dogs are responding.

You know, I used to think about a groomer kind of the same way that I think about like a shoe repair person, like, I just would bring my dog in, kind of like, I bring my messed up shoes in and then they would fix the dog. Like they fixed the shoes and I would pick them up and all would be well and I didn't really need to know about what went on in the interim period. But the fact is that grooming can be really traumatic for a lot of dogs. So I give a lot of credit to groomers who not only put in a lot of time and effort to acclimate dogs to the grooming process, but also who are willing to be transparent about it and if you have a dog groomer coming to your house, whether or not you're actually involved in the grooming process, you can at least be there to make sure that your dog is feeling comfortable.



And if your dog isn't comfortable, the good news is grooming is usually not something that has to be rushed. It's something that can be done over  a period of times, whether that means a groomer showing things that you can do to help your dog get better or feel better about grooming or having the groomer come again. But, it doesn't have to be a one stop process. And at School for the Dogs, we are encouraging our owners, our dog owners, from the time the dogs are puppies really, it's something that we, we try to drive home in Puppy Kindergarten to think about husbandry as part of training, to think about how you can make your dog feel comfortable around the equipment you're going to need to use with them or other people that are going to need to use with them from a very early point and to get them used to being handled. I think it's a really, really big favor that we can do to our dogs.



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