Like the Hamburgler Eats Hamburgers

My free business cards came in the mail today, thanks to Klout and MOO! I'm so excited; it's another way for me to help spread the word about The Writing Groomer.

Here's the back of the card.

And here's the blurry front. Yes, I intentionally take pictures that reflect my astigmatism, why do you ask? Ha ha ha.

Anyway, I feel a little more official now. Anywhere I go, I can easily talk about my blog and send people there with my card. Except for the fact that I'm too shy to talk to strangers. But I'll have to work on that, because I am REALLY determined to make this work. (By the way, it should go without saying, but if you like my blog, please share with your friends and family :-) )

My pictures are a little random today, so I apologize for not having a good central theme. It's just a quirky sort of a day, I guess!

OK, here are some pictures of what the bathing area of the groom shop looks like after blow drying a Bernese Mountain Dog that hadn't been groomed in six months. By the way, High Velocity Dryers are the best invention ever! All this hair I now don't have to brush out of the dog. Personally, my hands prefer the dryer over any brush, comb, or deshedding tool.

Yeah, groom shops eat up Shop Vacs like the Hamburgler eats hamburgers.

And that's not even really a lot of hair for such a big hairy breed. Oh, and in case you were wondering, wet hair sticks to everything, so the towels help prevent the hair from sticking to the floor and bottles and escaping under the door.

I got to do a lion cut on a Portuguese Water Dog today. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've gotten to do that. Most of the Porties in my area get Retriever clips (I do plenty of those, so I'll take pictures of that one of these days for comparison). Here's a picture.

I don't usually take Portie muzzles quite that short, but that's how the owner likes it. And sorry about all the spots on the table - that's hair stuck to the table with Portie drool. And she isn't that bad of a drooler compared to a lot of Porties.

Here are some before and after pictures of a Maltese I did today. He gets clean feet, which is unusual. Here's the before. Clean feet look a little strange when they are grown out.

Here's a non-blurry after.

And here's a blurry shot of his face. What can I say, my phone doesn't take very good pictures of things that move, and I don't have time to take dozens of pictures in hopes of getting a good one.

OK, I'll end with a nap time picture of Hailey and Dillin.

http://test.skimlinks.com/ (ignore this)

The true story of Sikhs - Roger Ebert's Journal

The true story of Sikhs - Roger Ebert's Journal

This is somewhat off-topic from what I usually post, but it is a subject I am passionate about. Please take 12 minutes to watch this documentary, then share it on your social networks; together we can help end discrimination!

PS - More dog stuff tomorrow, I promise.

Extraordinary Makeover, Westie Style

I have been wanting to share some before and after pics with all of you for quite a while now, but most of my clients come every 4-6 weeks, so their before and after pics aren't very impressive. Today, however, I did a Westie (Westphalia? really spell check?) that hadn't been groomed since the end of January. PERFECT for before and after pictures!

Here he is completely dirty.

I don't think he'd been brushed for a little while...although he had very few mats, which was impressive.

Here he is washed and dried but not brushed yet.

He still looks pretty ratty, but at least he's white again. Now here he is brushed.

He refuses to look at the camera, but at least he is starting to look less homeless.

And here's the final result.

Isn't that amazing? It's dogs like this that make me LOVE my job. I get to take a scraggly grayish-yellow mop of hair and turn it into something cute and lovable. Not that he wasn't actually lovable before, I just made his outside match his inside.

In other news, one of my coworkers got one of the always lovely vagueishly (yes, I'm inventing words now; if Shakespeare can do it, so can I) picky people. These people want their dog to look EXACTLY PERFECT but are terribly vague about what they actually want (short but not too short, a little fluffy but not too long, sort of squarish round...). These can be the most frustrating customers. I can do whatever you want with your dog, but you need to be able to clearly express to me what it is you want.

And I narrowly escaped disaster with Dillin last night. He threw up about a 4-inch-long piece of bully stick that he had swallowed whole (10 hours earlier!). I took a picture, but I won't share that grossness here. So to finish, here's a picture of Hailey and Dillin watching and hearing a video of a very loud dog.

Randomness, With Pics

This is why I have curtains.

Hailey gets worked up over every person to walk by and Dillin gets worked up by every dog that walks by. With my patio door facing the courtyard, it can get a little out of control sometimes. I use that red dog bed to smoosh the curtains against the door, but they still manage to get through to look outside. I think I need to get some fabric and double-sided tape to more permanently cover the windows. Otherwise, anybody have advice?

It's interesting because my mom has taken them out a couple of times while I was at work, and she says they're fine. When I take them out, they're lunatics. The dog park they are building here at my apartment complex should be opening fairly soon, and I am hoping that a) they will do better off leash than on the leash. This has proven to be true in the past at other dog parks I have taken them to. And b) the extra exercise will help them calm down a little. I ought to walk them more, but when they are so crazy on the leash and my feet are killing me from work...I tend to be too lazy.

In other news, I love my massage guy. No matter how tense I am or how much pressure he uses, I never wake up bruised the next day like I had with previous massage therapists. He's super friendly, too; I love talking to him. And I splurged on an hour and a half massage today because favoring my injured ankle has put strain on my other foot plus my legs and back, and all this typing after spending all day holding dogs, clippers, sheers, and brushes is kind of a nightmare on my hands.

This is the Dillin that I love.

He LOVES to chew on bones (and carpet when I'm not paying attention). He also likes to stockpile them, as you can see in the background.

Here is the quiet Hailey I love.

When she isn't freaking out about every human being who isn't in her "circle," she's a very sweet, relaxed doll of a dog.

And here they are posing.

I get mixed feeling from watching the Olympics. On the one hand, I feel like, Jeez, most of them are younger than I am, and look at what they've accomplished! And I get sad and feel like a loser. But I also look and say hey, they had a dream, they worked hard for it, and they got it, and if I work hard, I can get my dream, too.

OK, last piece of randomness. I was looking through my pictures and wanted to share this picture of Dexter's smile.

Haircuts

Like most groomers, I do a lot of the same haircuts day after day, dog after dog. I LOVE doing something even just slightly different from the "norm." Today was perfect, I had a lot of less-than-usual haircuts. They aren't exactly "unusual," just not exactly the same as every other dog I normally do.

My first dog of the day was a Goldendoodle, one of my regulars. They like her head, tail, and ears to be shorter than most other doodles.

Her head actually isn't too much shorter than I would normally do, but her tail and ears are DEFINITELY shorter than normal. I love it because I hate brushing matted ears and tails. That's why I keep Dillin's ears short, so I don't have to brush them.

My next dog was another regular, a Cockapoo (OK, I finally looked to see what spell check wanted me to change Cockapoo to, and it suggested, among other things, cockchafer. What in the world is a cockchafer???!!!). They like his head to be ENORMOUS. They also like him to dry curly, and since we don't do any kennel drying, that means I have to do the entire haircut before the bath and send him home damp.

I really wish I could wash and dry him before doing his haircut, I don't think I do a very good job on his head like this. He does HATE the dryer, though, and his owners LOVE this haircut. So I guess it works out okay.

After lunch, I had another Cockapoo. This dog is a regular of my groom shop but not me necessarily. Anyway, they like his head, ears, and tail to be short.

I think he's cute like this. No giant head, no poufy ears. Just short and sweet.

Next I had a full-coat Havanese. We rarely see full-coat dogs of any breed, and certainly not Havanese. She hadn't been to our shop since February. I guess she went somewhere else in between, but it had definitely been a while. This picture was taken right after the bath and blow dry and before I brushed her out.

This picture doesn't even do justice to how matted she was. I barely had to do any trimming, mostly just feet and visor, but she took almost 2 1/2 hours from start to finish. I can do a Standard Poodle in that amount of time. Here's the after picture. This was the least blurry picture I took. By the time I was done, she was ready to get out of there and wouldn't hold still or look at me.

That's a lot of hair, and that is definitely outside the normal range of what I do on a daily basis.

I also groomed a "Dachsador" - a Dachsund/Labrador mix. I was so tired that I forgot to take a picture of her.

I'll try to keep the pictures coming; they seem to be popular. As always, thanks for reading and feel free to leave any comments.

Journal

My brain is empty. I feel the need to post a blog post tonight, though. I'm putting so much pressure on myself. I like the pressure. Embrace the pressure. Do not be intimidated by it. Love it. Feel your power.

What do I want from life? I'll be 30 in about 2 months. I know that I do want to make a living by writing, preferably on my own schedule. Writing on a strict deadline all the time like a journalist would make me insane.

I want to find love someday. Most of the time I am okay being single, but in my quietest moments, I do wish I had somebody besides my dogs to keep me company. Somebody I love who loves me back. Through sickness and health and all that.

I want to figure out how to train my dogs a little better. I hate that I groom and write about dogs and mine can be so unruly. Hm, project for my next day off: Google dog training and try to pick up some pointers.

I want to eventually make enough money to be able to travel. I love to travel and hate that I can't afford it right now. I can't even afford to pay someone to watch my dogs in order for me to leave town (I don't know anybody willing to watch my Little Monsters for free).

I want to want to lose weight enough to actually do something about it. Right now, I'm so lackadaisical about even wanting to lose weight that I'm not in any frame of mind to actually tackle that issue.

This is sounding like a whine list, and since I might just go ahead and publish this as a blog post, here is a list of things I am grateful for.

I am grateful for my loving and supporting family and friends. I wouldn't have the nerve to tackle my dreams without them. (For more about my family, read here and here.)

I am grateful for my awesome job and coworkers. This is by far the best place I have ever groomed.

I am grateful for my dogs, even if they can be a little naughty. They keep me grounded by preventing my head from floating too high in the clouds. They also bring me up when I'm feeling down. If you are new to my blog, you can read about Hailey and Dillin here and here and here and here.

I am grateful to have a (leaky) roof over my head. Read about my leaky ceiling here and here.

I am grateful to have a fairly reliable car.

Also, I am grateful that Blogger makes it so easy to do a blog and insert links; my computer/internet skills are somewhere between beginner and intermediate.

Incidentally, I was going to try to add an ad for Blogger here, but instead I found this:



...OK, never mind, I guess. Blogger now won't cooperate and put in the ad I wanted. It was for a T-shirt that says "I'm SO blogging this." I would totally buy it if I had money...also if the link actually worked.

Anyway, if you're still reading, thanks for coming inside my brain!

Puppies

Puppies. Everybody loves them. They're cute and adorable and fluffy and innocent.

But you know how you have to train a puppy to do its business outside, not chew on furniture, and come when called? Puppies also need to be trained how to be groomed. This includes learning that things like the water, dryer, clippers, and scissors won't hurt them as well as learning how to stand still.

Here's a 5-month-old Labradoodle puppy I groomed on Sunday.

This was her very first groom, and she was matted down to the skin. The only option was to shave her...and she was terrified of the clippers. This is obviously the before picture. I had intended to take an after picture, as well, but I had to groom 20 minutes past close and her owner was sitting around waiting that entire time. All I could leave was her ears and tail; everything else had to be shaved. She did OK (eventually) for having her body shaved, but her face was the most matted thing of all, and that's where she was most terrified of the clippers. That's also one of the easiest places to cut a dog. The other groomer had already left by the time I got to her face, so it was an adventure trying to wrestle her alone to shave her face. I succeeded, but the end result wasn't very pretty. At first blush, her owner said she looked amazing and thanked me profusely. I wonder what he thought when he got home and saw how choppy and uneven her face really was?

The most frustrating thing about puppies for a groomer is that many (most? all? I don't even know) groom puppies at a discount to encourage people to bring their puppies in early and often to get them used to everything. This is brilliant when people take advantage of it, but it can be frustrating in situations like the matted, terrified puppy above (groomers get paid by commission only, usually) when we're doing more work than on a well-behaved adult but getting paid less. The good outweighs the bad, of course, because many people do bring their puppies in a lot starting at 2 or 3 months old, which is exactly what we want, and many of those puppies grow up to be well-behaved adults.

Here is another puppy where pricing bit me in the butt.

This is a six-month-old Wheaten puppy. A very, very large Wheaten puppy. And crazy (as Wheatens tend to be). And the owners just wanted about an inch taken off all over (his hair was at least 4-5 inches long). So now I have to do a somewhat difficult haircut on a crazy, wiggly, scared-of-the-clippers-I-am-trying-to-skim-him-with puppy. All for a smaller commission because he's only 6 months old.

Now let me emphasize that this all works out okay in the end. Most puppies grow up to be well-behaved, and puppies are the best way to get regular request clients. And they definitely are cute, and it feels good to make them even cuter. The craziness is all just part of the job.

To finish, here is a puppy picture of Hailey that her original owner emailed to me. I got her when she was five months old and nowhere near this tiny.

Good Dogs

For all the times I've complained about hard days, naughty dogs, or difficult customers, I thought I should make up for it by writing about some of my favorite dogs and customers.

I'm trying to remember to take more pictures, but I either forget or run out of time, so bear with me as I build up my picture arsenal. I did get one picture today. This is the best Alaskan Malamute ever!

Not the best picture, sorry. I am definitely a better writer than photographer. Anyway, she's huge and hairy and usually takes a full two hours start to finish, but she behaves perfectly well. She likes to talk a lot, but she  jumps everywhere I need her to without being asked twice. I can take her leash off as soon as she walks through the door and never have to worry about her. She helps make up for all the big dogs I have to pick up into the tub or wrestle to trim their butt.

Then there are the dogs you love for no particular reason. One of my favorite dogs is a really old cocker. I think he's about 17. He's all skin and bones, deaf, wobbly, and covered in moles, but I just love him to pieces. His mom makes me a little nuts sometimes, but he is the sweetest dog ever - well, except when he has a senile moment. Those aren't pretty. He's a little difficult to groom and I can't make him look all that great, but I love him all the same.

There are also dogs where maybe you don't love the dog itself, but the customer is so amazing that you can't help but love the dog, too. I do this Tibetan Terrier who is getting a little older and fussier. The customer likes her feet to look "like square Grinch Feet," which still frustrates me after grooming her more than a year because the most emphasized shape in grooming is round. Round, round, round...square? Anyway, I don't dislike the dog herself, I like her OK, but I LOVE her mom. This woman is absolutely amazing and has adopted/rescued two highly special needs dogs. She is always perky and bubbly, even at 8 in the morning.

I also have dogs I enjoy because they either make me feel like a good groomer or make me feel like I'm learning more on my way to becoming a better groomer. This is particularly true for this one customer who has a bichon and a Westie, and she likes both of them to look pretty close to show dogs. I don't think I'm quite that good yet, but I definitely get better every time.

Here's the Westie. She absolutely positively REFUSED to look at the camera. She doesn't particularly like to look straight ahead when I am attempting to trim her face, either. So here's a side view, and I am pretty impressed that her skirt looks hand stripped rather than cut with clippers (I used a 4F blade for you other groomers out there who might care).

Some dogs I love because of their personality, some I love because of their parents, and some I love because I can make them look good.

I definitely like most of the dogs I groom. Unfortunately, the difficult ones tend to stick out in my memory the most. So I will try to throw in pictures and stories of my favorite dogs from time to time to balance out the other stories.

Family, Part 2

I love watching my mom interact with her brother. He lives out of state, so I don't get to see him very often. Not only does he have a great sense of humor, but he is really the only person on the planet (that I am aware of) who can get away with ribbing my mom like that. And I get to hear stories from when they were kids - like apparently my mom once stabbed my uncle's hand with a fork because he reached in front of her.

I also love to see my brother and his wife interacting.When I see the way he looks at her, I wonder if he is the same person I grew up with. He really is a better man since he met her. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned all this before, so I apologize if you already know how in awe of my sister-in-law I am. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that she was able to tame my brother - after all, she is a preschool teacher. I sometimes wonder what made her fall in love with him to begin with, but he is definitely lovable now that she's gotten to him.

Back to the Facebook thing I think I mentioned the other day, how Facebook brings me closer to my out of state family; I got to read some of my cousin's writing today. I didn't know she liked to write, also (I do remember she is an incredible artist). So that was really neat, another way to get closer to her. She's pretty good, too.

OK, that's it for tonight, it's late. As always, thanks for reading and feel free to comment.

Grooming While Injured

No matter what kind of job you have, working when you are hurt, sick, or otherwise not feeling well sucks! I think some jobs are harder than others, though, when it comes to working when you don't feel good. Grooming is definitely one of those.

One of the problems is that if you don't feel good, the dogs pick up on your negative energy and tend to misbehave more, which, of course, makes you feel even worse. The worse you feel, the more they misbehave, the more they misbehave, the worse you feel.

Also, grooming is a very physically demanding job. I usually spend most of my day on my feet, but I sprained my ankle a couple of days ago, so I need to sit as much as possible. Some groomers are more comfortable sitting, some are more comfortable standing. I prefer to stand. I find it easier for me to move around the dogs than to move the dogs every which way to reach all sides. So when I sit, I'm not as comfortable with my grooming style, which the dogs also pick up on. Also, I realized today, many of my request dogs are used to standing still and facing one direction the entire groom; they did not appreciate being manhandled so much.

Also, grooming (like most jobs I suppose) is a job based on habits. When you are used to doing everything the same way, the slightest change is annoying. I had to slightly alter a lot of things today, including how I pick dogs up.

I apologize, this blog post has been far whinier than I intended.

One great thing about my job is that some of the dogs can absolutely make you feel better when you don't feel good. They say having a pet reduces your blood pressure; I'll bet the same holds true for working with dogs.

Also, my regular customers actually care bout me as a person. Most jobs, you need to suck it up and pretend you are OK, ESPECIALLY when you are dealing with customers. My background in retail causes me to put on that fake smile with most people, but it is nice to be able to occasionally let my guard down.

It also helps that I really enjoy my coworkers, and they and my boss genuinely care about me and my well-being.

How about you and your job? What are the pros and cons about working when you are sick or injured?