Grooming Box - As Time Goes By

GROOMERS, like old wine improve with age (mostly!) Then one day, not so young at heart and less agile as we would like, facts have to be faced.

- Eileen Geeson

It may be time to wind down. I am grateful to Debbie Scriven for writing to ask me if I can suggest ways she can scale down her grooming business to a part-time occupation owing to her near retirement age.

Having two friends that are currently in this situation I thought for the new year it might be the right time to look at this grooming dilemma in the Grooming Box. Your thoughts and suggestions are welcome. Are you thinking on these lines, or perhaps you have already scaled down. How did you do it? What were your priorities?

Successful groomers are rather like seasoned breeders, although, lucky for them they don’t generally accumulate dogs as some breeders do. There are some senior citizen breeders that have far too many dogs, and that is a problem that can lead to tragic circumstances both for the dogs and their owner. There has to be a time when reality checks are essential, and the welfare of the dogs that you may be leaving, or finding it difficult to keep in tip-top condition, are paramount to your emotions. Like obsessive collectors, alcoholics and betting weaknesses, anybody can succumb to keeping too many dogs and find themselves out of control. Recognising this is a great way to helping sort the problem, but some people will not be told, or look realistically at their situation and it is easy to see disaster striking at some point in the not too distant future.