Preventing Tragedy Ep166

Episode 166 of the podcast. This week we're talking about preventing tragedy.

There's a video going around of a dog who died during a nail trim and we are going to break that down, talk about what happened and talk about safety. So tune in. This week.

You're listening to the Creating Great Grooming Dogs podcast. I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith.

I'm a certified professional groomer, a certified behavior consultant for canines, a grooming instructor at Whole Pet Grooming Academy, Certified where I also teach my online program, Master Groomer behavior Specialist. And I'm the owner of Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire. And this, my friends and colleagues, is the podcast where grooming and training meet.

This week we're going to talk about a tragedy.

And I usually try to keep things really light on this podcast and we talk about behavior, but I think that this is something that we really need to talk about in our industry. We need to talk about it more. This is a story about a dog who died during nail trimming. Yeah, died during a nail trim.

Now, I want to start off by saying this is not about blaming or shaming. That's not my style, you guys. If you've been listening for a while, you know that's not my style.

But this is about trying to make a difference and perhaps preventing this from happening again. Because what I saw in this video, so much of it was normal day to day stuff for some groomers.

And if we break it down further and take a closer look at what happened, so you might be already aware of this video, I will share the link in the show notes. The dog does die. So if you can't watch that, that's okay. It was very hard to watch.

In fact, I will say the podcast is very late this week because this has been sitting in my notebook and I wasn't really ready to, to talk about it yet. So I've been putting it off.

But this is something that I think is a very, very common way for dogs to get hurt and for dogs to die and for us to talk about it here so that we can prevent this type of tragedy from happening again. It's a very, very sad story, but I think we need to talk about it.

So first off, let's say that we'll start with what happened in the video and, and the dog starts off being dropped off by their owner for a nail trim appointment. The dog is already wearing a muzzle.

The groomer brings the dog out back, picks the dog up by its sweater or jacket kind of Hard to tell in the video, but picks the dog up by that. Seems afraid to get near that dog's face, even with the muzzle. This is a red flag we'll talk about later.

Puts the dog on the grooming loop and then on the groomer's helper.

So if you're not a groomer or you're not aware of what that product is, that's a device that we are now using a groomer's loop, which is sort of like a leash connection from the neck to the grooming arm above them, and then a secondary loop to keep them from spinning. So the secondary loop is placed in front of them, and that's on the upright of the grooming arm. Very, very common tool. Part of our safety equipment.

There's a right way and a wrong way to use it. Unfortunately, this case was the wrong way to use it, but we'll get into that more.

So he's on a groomer's helper, so tied in two places with a muzzle on. And the groomer proceeds to try to do his back nails. And he starts spinning around a little bit, and they pull him tighter. Now, so far.

So far, this is stuff I see all the time. So far, this isn't even anything unusual. This is not the way I do it. And I'm again, I'm not shaming and blaming.

I'm just bringing some perspective that if you're thinking, oh, that couldn't be me, it could have been you.

If you use a groomer's helper and you're not really aware of everything going on at the front end of that dog, this tragedy could have played out for you, too, because what they were doing is they were pulling the dog backward, which now his front legs weren't touching the ground. All of the weight of his body was either on those people, there were two people, or on his throat. On his throat. So he starts to choke out.

Um, they mistake it for struggling for nails. Right. If you're not watching that front end, you don't really know what's happening up there. And any sort of struggling.

I mean, you guys know I've mentioned it many times. We want calm, comfortable, cooperative. We want to help a dog be calm and not push through struggling.

But they were pushing through, struggling until this dog lost consciousness. Um, yeah, it's very upsetting to hear about. Right? And. And again, I think that they just didn't know. And then they were like, oh, my gosh.

You know, you can see in the video, you don't have any audio, but you can see in the video, they. They let the dog loose. They're looking at him, he's laying there limp on the table.

Um, and then the next upsetting thing that happens, no attempt at first aid at all.

So we're going to break down a lot of this, but let's start off with that first aid part, because a number of people have said to me that sometimes corporate has a specific policy about first aid. You must call a supervisor who brings the dog to the vet in the building, things like that.

Here's where I've got a. I've got a push my own opinion on this. I might sign something like that for a job and then just do whatever I want in an emergency.

I know, I know it seems reckless, but there's no way on earth I'm going to not do CPR on a dog unless it's a do not resuscitate. This dog's ancient, and we. We are kind of wondering if it's going to be his last days. But if something happens, I'm going to do first aid.

Yeah, I'm going to try to stop bleeding. I'm going to try to stabilize fractures. I'm going to try to do cpr. And if I lose my job, I lose my job, right? Think about this, guys.

This is somebody's pet. This is somebody's family member. And I found that part really upsetting. We are responsible for the dogs in our care.

Our boss is responsible for it, too. If you have a boss or a supervisor or whatever, they're responsible for it, too.

But you, as that dog's groomer, are responsible for the dog in your care. And if something like this happens, you know, you or any sort of accident, tragedy, you know, it's up to you to do some sort of first aid.

So I'm going to throw it out here in the first part that it's really important to know first aid, and it's really important. I mean, we'll talk in the next part about preventing.

There were a lot of signs here to prevent this, but what if first aid would have made a difference for this dog? What if perhaps not, I guess there was damage to the trachea.

As you can imagine, being held by two points and holding your body weight while you flailed around is a great way to crush a trachea or snap a neck or choke yourself out and die. And I know that sounds very, very harsh, but this is a tragedy, and we're breaking it down. And like I said, it's really hard. It's really hard.

Not my normal upbeat podcast. I'll record another upbeat one for you guys later. Okay? But.

But it's hard to watch something like that and pick it apart and see where things went wrong. But first aid is really important. And I want you all, anybody listening to feel like it's part of your job.

If something happens to that dog, you are its caretaker in that moment. And I want you all to learn first aid. There's PetTech. PetTech runs first aid classes that are excellent.

I've been through the pet tech first aid class a couple of times. It's wonderful. They run courses all over the place.

Many of our conferences have pet tech come in and do certifications, but that's something you should stay up to date on. I believe the pet tech recertification is every two years. It's something you should do frequently. I have a course that I took on Udemy.

It's not as good as being in person, but I can look through that course anytime I want. Just refresh my memory. It's a pet first aid course and why not? I have it forever. I bought the course, I have it forever.

And I can very, very quickly look up things. I want you to be aware that there are some things that we should do.

And one of the other kind of upsetting things I saw this week, this, this is heartbreaking. How can I make myself stand out from other businesses?

And I was shocked at how many people were like, you could learn first aid, you could promote that. To me, that's sort of like that. That's, that's meeting your adequacy, right?

I mean, I don't want to downplay that you did the first aid, but that everyone should, that should not set you apart from other professionals. That should be part of our baseline for our industry is, is to have pet first aid. If you want to be a pet first aid instructor, cool beans.

Keep going. Go beyond. Go beyond. Teach the rest of us.

But the idea that this was something to, you know, other people are saying things like pet photography and lots of other great ideas. But I was a little bit alarmed by how many people were like, oh, we promote that we know pet first aid. And I'm like, that's terrifying.

We should all know pet first aid.

So part of this tragedy is that the people who were involved, and again, not shaming or blaming the people involved looked truly lost, like just panic stricken deer in the headlights, stillness, trying to figure out what to do. And that kind of broke my heart because I think that we can learn pet first Aid.

We can spend some time really thinking about what you need to do in an emergency. And maybe in your workplace, that's something that you guys can occasionally drill each other on. What would you do if this happened?

What's first aid for if this happened? If you have a dog coming in with a history of seizures, you know, drill each other. What do we do if this dog has a seizure?

There's not much you can do, but there are things that you do. So pet first aid is really, really important. We are responsible for that. No boss or supervisor is going to tell me, I can't do pet first aid.

I will do first aid until someone with equal or greater experience level comes and takes over. And that's really where I think the supervisor and the veterinarian, you know, like, you.

You start, and then they come in and they take over, and then they can bring them to the vet and the vet takes over. Right. But there's. Nobody's going to tell me I can't do that. All right? So I need you to own it. Be brave. Own it. Be ready to lose your job over it.

And if you're not ready to lose your job to help a dog, I need you to kind of think about that. Like, wait a minute. Yeah, this isn't right. Maybe I need to change things before an accident happens.

Maybe we need to have some real tough talks where I work about pet first aid and the limitations and how I will do my best until a supervisor gets there, and I will do my best until that dog gets to the vet. You know, but, like, this is. This is how we're going to manage it. Let's talk about it now before something happens.

Now, in the next part, we're going to talk about preventing this tragedy because there were a lot of red flags that I see, and I don't want any of you to have this happen to you.

So let's talk about how this tragedy might have been prevented. Now, my very first red flag. Things that I would look for and act on first, and hopefully you guys will come to believe this.

Also, when somebody brings their dog in muzzled. Have we taken a behavior history? Have we talked to that owner? A lot of our owners think that a muzzle suddenly renders everything safe.

And sadly, this video is a great example of. Yeah, still not safe. Still not safe.

A muzzle can prevent a dog from biting us, but not from scratching us, not from Jumping off the table, not from flinging themselves to their own death. All sorts of other problems can happen when a dog has a behavior issue. We need to talk to our owners about that.

We need to say, okay, what are we doing to help teach him that nail trimming is safe? What are we doing to help him teach him to be calm, comfortable, and cooperative.

This owner knows their dog has an issue, but do they know that there's a solution set and are we ready to sell that? To tell them, like, this is in your dog's best interest. This is in your best interest for us to work on this behavior problem.

And that will probably mean not getting the nails done today. That will probably mean working on touching feet, working on handling the muzzle. I'm not against muzzles. That's not what I'm saying.

But a muzzle does not render everything safe, as we can sadly see in this video. Dog was muzzled. Dog was muzzled. Still not safe.

But if we can work on the behavior issue and teach this dog to be calm, comfortable, and cooperative with nail trimming, that's something we need to be ready to talk to owners about. And we need to start telling owners that the behavior is important. I want you to start thinking about behavior, sort of like a matted dog, okay?

They come in with all these mats, and we're like, I can't give you the haircut you want because your dog has this other problem, which is all the hair is tangled and that's not healthy for their skin. I want you to think about behavior in the same way.

I can't give you the nail trim you want because that's not what's going to be in the best interest of your dog. Your dog has this underlying problem, which is that your dog panics for this. Your dog is very afraid of this.

And there are health risks and safety risks to your dog being very afraid. We have solutions, and here are some options.

But just like putting beautiful trims over matted dogs, that humanity over vanity has to be part of behavior, too. This is not in your dog's best interest today. Let me tell you what some of our options are. You know, how are you working on feet at home?

And yes, it's okay to tell owners that they need to work on stuff at home, too. You know, we want to be an educational source for them, not just tell them, well, why aren't you working on it at home?

But to say, you can work on this at home, it's going to require some work from you. We need to see him more often. We need to get him used to being touched. We need to get him used to being touched with stuff and things.

We need to get him used to letting us trim one nail, maybe a couple of nails. We need him to be comfortable for this. And I feel that a healthy dog can be taught to be a safe dog.

So there are some brain injuries and things like that where dogs are not going to be able to learn. But most dogs can learn to be safe for this. And that's really important. It would have prevented this tragedy. And I still see it all the time.

Groomers don't necessarily think about behavior issues until they have trouble completing the job, until the groomer has difficulty completing the job. But the dog has been having difficulty since the moment they walked in.

And we need to take that seriously because, as you can see from the video, things can get out of hand. Things can get out of hand. It doesn't take a large dog struggling for things to get out of hand. A small dog struggling can do injuries to themselves.

So I need you to really think about this. Behavior is really important. And we can change it. We sure can. We can sure change it.

And that's been something I've been trying to teach the world for a long time. But there are lots of ways to change a behavior.

So first step is talking to an owner and finding out what the problem is, how long it's been going on. Is the vet aware?

Is there some, like, physical problem going on so that we can talk to the owners about, okay, how can we modify our nail trimming process and not letting them walk away with the expectation that we're just going to add more straps and more people and get this nail trim done. They're not buying a nail trim. They're buying nail trimming services by a professional who sets the safety standard for that dog's grooming.

We set that safety standard. If I don't think it's safe, I do not continue.

My second red flag with this was when the groomer lifted the dog up by that jacket or sweater, whatever it was. The impression I got, and this is just my intuitive hit on it, was the groomer was afraid of getting near that dog's head, even with the muzzle on.

Now, I want you to kind of think about, there are times when you are really looking at a dog thinking, I don't trust this dog. And I want you to think in that moment, am I catching on that this is not safe?

Is that my body telling me I'm seeing something about this that is not safe? Safe and I should step back and rethink this. Early in my career, I would have said, I have a feeling this dog isn't going to be good for something.

Later in my career, I realized, oh, no, I was seeing all sorts of body language that I hadn't yet learned how to identify and describe, but just was responding to the body language. You are probably responding to some very clear body language that this dog does intend to hurt you.

And this is going to turn into a real battle, which we shouldn't be doing in dog grooming anymore. Come on, it's not the 90s, guys. We're in 2022. We don't have to do drag down battles with dogs. It's inappropriate at this point. Right.

Let's think about this. Like, all right, how can we help calm this dog down?

But if you think a dog is doing something that could be really injurious to you or to them, it's okay to say, I am not comfortable grooming this dog today. I'm not going to be doing his nails today. We need to talk about this more. And someone might say, well, it looked like he wasn't that bad.

You didn't even try. Yeah. Yep. But I'm in charge of this dog's safety while in my care.

If I accept this dog into my care, it's a tough sell sometimes, but it's okay to say, listen, this dog is very likely to hurt himself or to hurt me. And that's not a nail trim. Now here's another point, too. I have a short video that I show my owners of what a nail trim looks like.

Like a super casual, take it slow nail trim. And it takes me a minute and a half, two minutes with me describing the nail trim. Like, that's what a nail trim is.

If they think I'm spending all this money for a nail trim appointment. Yeah, you're spending money for something that takes a minute and a half on a dog who's not trying to hurt us is super casual. It's not a big deal.

Anything beyond that is a training issue, is a behavior issue and a safety issue. Behavior problems are when dogs get hurt, people get hurt, and equipment gets broken, this tragedy could have been prevented.

Now, another big red flag here is that if we're using something like a groomer's helper, which is an excellent tool, we have to use the tool appropriately.

All of our safety equipment, whether it be a muzzle or a grooming loop or the groomer's helper, perhaps a trach saver, all of those things all of those tools, we have to run it through the filter of is it helping this dog be comfortable? Is it keeping this dog safe?

If you are using a groomer's helper and you have the attachment point above them and an attachment point in front of them, that's to keep them from spinning. Their feet have to be on the table. Okay. That's not to hold their head in space. It's not to, like, put pressure on their neck and hold them still.

That's to keep them from spinning and being able to reach around at you. That's what it's for. And it is an excellent tool for that job. This was a misuse of a very, very common safety tool.

And that's why we need to think about the tools that we're using. We need to think it through. Is this helping this dog be safe? Is it helping this dog be comfortable? Not just me as the groomer. Is it helping this dog?

Because if it's not helping this dog, it may be the wrong tool for this situation. We need to think about what tools we're using and how we're using them and how it's affecting the dog. So any of our safety equipment. A muzzle.

A muzzle should be something that the dog is comfortable with before ever putting it on. Did the owner work on that? Perhaps they brought their dog in muzzled. So maybe they have been working on that.

Maybe the dog is actually comfortable wearing a muzzle. We can't leave muzzles on for an entire grooming, but for something like a nail trim, if that helps everybody feel safe, I am okay with that. Right.

That's safety equipment. In fact, I find it a little alarming when people are like, we don't use muzzles at all. And I'm like, oh, I'm not sure about that one.

I think that muzzles are a helpful tool.

But if a dog needs a muzzle, we need to talk about the behavior problem and use it just as our backup plan, not as our primary strategy to keep everybody safe. They're wearing a muzzle, so I'm just going to keep going. I don't feel that's appropriate. That's not going to teach them that this is safe.

That's not going to teach them to be comfortable with it. That's going to teach them that I need to make sure no one ever puts a muzzle on my face again. And how many dogs do we see who do that?

Oh, no, you're not putting the muzzle on. No. So next thing you know, the owner's putting the muzzle on before they get in the car. Owner pulls a muzzle out, can't get their dog right.

Dogs pick up on that stuff. All of our safety equipment has to be part of helping a dog feel safe and feel comfortable. Now that includes things like the hammocks.

I think some dogs find those to be really comfortable, but it's going to depend on the dog. That's not a way to just get it done. And ha ha, you can't fight back now, you jerk.

We need to really think about how the dog is affected by our safety equipment. And then when we are using something like a groomer's helper, we really need to be aware, is this dog struggling against it?

Struggling against our equipment is how dogs get hurt. It's how they get hurt. I want you to think about dogs that try to scratch the muzzle off.

Have you seen a dog like really gouge their face with their own nail? They got hurt. Have you seen dogs that try to pull up against the grooming loop so hard that we're worried they're going to snap their neck?

Because they can. Don't take that for granted. Oh, yeah, they can.

Using all of these pieces of equipment, we have to think about the safety of the dog and watching this tragedy play out. I kept thinking to myself, I know so many groomers who use a groomer's helper and are they watching for things like, is this dog pulling against it?

Because I think a lot of day to day grooming is people letting them pull against stuff. And in this case, the dog died and it was unnecessary and it didn't need to happen. And it's not about judging or blaming or shaming.

But let's put this in perspective and try to make sure it doesn't happen again. And perhaps CPR would have helped. Perhaps that dog's trachea was crushed. And yeah, can you hear the tremble in my voice?

Because it's so hard to talk about. It is so hard to talk about. But I want you to think about safety for the dogs.

And if I'm using equipment to hold them still, I have to be sure that they're not fighting against that equipment. And I know, I know. I can hear it out there right now. People are like, but of course they're fighting against the equipment. That's why I'm using it.

And that's why we circle back to what are we doing about the behavior problem. Because struggling against equipment is not going to teach a dog that it's safe. It's not going to teach them to be comfortable with it.

It's not the long term plan for all the future groomings. At each grooming we should be planting the seed that this is safe and you're fine.

And this is we're going to try to make you comfortable at each grooming. And then future groomings become easier and easier. So if you're not sold yet, listen to more of the podcast, Contact me.

That's fine, but behavior is such an important part. If this dog didn't have a behavior problem and didn't come in with a muzzle, would they have had that issue? Probably not. Probably not.

It would have been safe day to day use of the groomer's helper.

If that's something they use on most dogs, dog probably wouldn't have been turning around stuff, probably wouldn't have been manhandled quite as much.

And I think one of the critical things that happened in this was that they thought the struggling was about the nail trim when this dog was being choked out. Not all wiggling is about what your hands are doing. There's other things going on in the room and there's other things happening for that dog.

So again, a sad tale today, but I thought it was really important because Go ahead, leave comments. Join the Facebook group Creating Great Grooming Dogs or the Facebook page Creating Great Grooming Dogs. Go ahead and weigh in on this.

It's something we really need to talk about.