Dog Grooming Success???

Hi! I have a question for the experienced groomers in the field. After a three month time period, should one still be struggling to finish with three dogs in a day? I work 3 days a week,8-4. I am doing my own bathing,ect. and need to have some touch up help scissoring on some of my bodies and faces. I work in a small grooming shop and the owner has very high standards. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the feed back from her,and her standards! But I don't know if I'm banging my head against the wall and should throw in the towel and call it a day. I love working with the dogs, but how long does it take to work up your speed and master this work? I did take 8 months off prior to finding a job after I graduated from grooming school.My plan was to work for someone for a short time and then open up a kennel/day care and grooming spa. I will only jump into the grooming when need be and hire a full time person. But I feel like I need to know what I'm doing! I'm not a kid and do have a lot of business experience. Can you help me out! Thanks! PITROTTIMOM

The experienced groomers I know, depending on what the dog needs, can do upwards of 8-10 dogs in a day I think. Now, if it's something very time intensive, like a Shed-X treatment, then they can't do as many, but 3 dogs in an 8 hour period does seem pretty slow to me.

When I was working for a boarding facility and doing the bathing/blowing out, I could do about 15 dogs in an hour. Now granted, I wasn't scissoring or doing nails.

Not everyone is cut out to be a groomer, so I wouldn't worry too heavily.

My Sister is a NCMG and owns her own grooming facility, she hired a young girl out of grooming school about 4 years ago. When the new groomer first started she was doing about 2 dogs a day. My Sister always said first you get good then you get faster. My Sister let the groomer work at her own pace, taught her proper breed trims, scissoring as the grooming school she attended did not teach any proper breed trims. She bought a copy of notes from the grooming table for this groomer and still will jump in and help her when ever she needs it especially with scissoring and specific breed trims. Another bonus is where all the groomers are working at their own pace they are not stressed out therefore the dogs coming in for grooming are not stressed out. My Sister worked in a shop that pumped the dogs out, the groomers were stressed the dogs were stressed it was just not a good environment.

It never bothered my Sister that this new groomer was slow at first, she completely understood. This new groomer is now booking more dogs a day and is faster, it took her about 1 year to perfect her skills and once she started feeling comfortable her speed naturally started improving as well. Even my Sister only does about 6-10 dogs a day (unless she has me there to bath/blow dry then we do up to 14) and she has been grooming for 25 years! LOL It's all in what you are comfortable with, what you choose to focus on and if you specialize in certain things you can charge more. If you pump out more dogs than what is enjoyable to make more money you may end up not enjoying your job as a groomer and you can get burned out quickly. My Sister avoided burn out and health issues as she enjoys what she does and works at her own pace and does styles which she enjoys.

So basically if your boss is not too worried about it you shouldn't be either. Unless it's money that you are concerned about. If you are an excellent groomer with talents then you can charge more for the end results, there are people who will pay more for perfect styles.

I also highly recommend attending grooming seminars. My Sister plans on taking her newest groomer to Hershey this year and has attended many seminars in the past and has competed. It's always refreshing learning new skills and sometimes their are seminars on how to speed up your work.

I hope this helps you a bit I wouldn't be too worried about the amount of dogs you are doing a day right now.

Just to add, I bath and blow dry on Saturdays and I can get about 14 dogs done a day that is if the majority are small dogs. If there are a few Newf's and other large breeds with double coat with a few small/med dogs thrown in I can get about 11 dogs bathed and blown dry. This is in a 6 hour time frame. I don't do nails,ears etc, but I am expected to have all the dogs 100 % dry and brushed out...the blow drying really makes a huge impact on how the entire groom job will turn out. For example if I was blow drying a Newf and did it wrong and let the coat curl that would be unacceptable.

Zoom you bathed/blow dried 15 dogs in one hour!!! Wow, I couldn't imagine. Were you just bathing then putting under a cage dryer? small breeds? I would be exhausted and burned out in no time doing that many LOL You must have a ton of energy!

Our groomer comes to the house in a grooming vehicle and does our three, she is here from 9 to about 1 or 2.... each one needs bath, blow dry, and a haircut plus all the extras like nails, ears, etc. She only takes one out to the vehicle at a time and does spend a little time talking to us between each one usually.

I will preface this by saying I could never be a groomer and I am sure it takes a long time to master the work but the only problem I see with taking so long on each dog is losing some customers. I know if a groomer was taking too long with my dogs I would probably stop using them only because I would worry about the dog... I know they get tired standing on the grooming table too long and I would worry that it was too stressful for them if they were on the table over about an hour and a half.

It was a combo of all sizes and have lots of towels to pre-dry and then a good highpowered blower. I also had the slight advantage of doing mostly "kennel baths" which meant that while the dog was perfectly clean, they didn't have to be 100% dry (though with the thicker coated guys I took more time drying to avoid hot spots) and I didn't have to brush them out afterwards--though again, if we weren't slammed or have a "holiday load" then I could sometimes grab a brush and do a little bit if needed.

When I was helping out in the grooming section (this was a full-service boarding resort) and did their baths for them, then yes, each one took longer depending on coat type.