GROOMING 101 PREP FOR PETS

Love is all you want to give to your furry bundle of joy. You want him/her to be safe, comfortable, and jolly. Yet, all it feels like is torture when you take your dog for a grooming session in a salon. Torture for them and torture for you because it’s torture for them.

- Divya Punjabi*

Why oh why is your pet acting like you’re making them go through their worst nightmare? You only want to do good. When you drop your poor pet at the salon, you reason-you want her clean, you want her/him devoid of any skin infections, and you want her stress-free(from all the tangles and outside heat). So why is it that your intentions and their reactions are forming a basic oxymoron?

There is an answer to this. While your heart-to-heart prep speech to your pet and the treats do their job temporarily, let’s go through how we can make this process holistically easier for us and our pets. Here’s what certified and award-winning groomers at Zane’s Pet Spa had to say:

Take it slow, steady, and playful. 

1  Once you get your puppy home, and he/she settles into his environment and her/his new family, place him on the table, rub his paws gently with your hand. Invest in a grooming comb or use your own comb, take it through his/her fur everyday. Do this for just five to ten minutes. Hold his chin with your fingers too, for about ten minutes. Pups and grown-up dogs are generally sensitive about touch to these areas. Getting them acquainted with touch and action there will make the professional groomers process much, much easier. For cats, practice holding them by the scruff, since nature dictates that their mum carries them in her mouth by the scruff. Another shortcut to stress-free grooming.