Grooming Those Senior Dogs Ep215

Grooming those Senior Dogs Ep215

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[00:00:00] Episode 215, we're gonna talk about grooming those senior pets, whether that be dogs or cats this show is very dog centric, , but our senior pets have some special requirements, and let's go ahead and talk about some of their behavior needs as well as some of their physical needs and how that affects their behavior.

[00:00:17] You are listening to the Creating Great Grooming Dog Show. I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith. I'm a master groomer behavior specialist, a master canine stylist, a certified professional dog trainer, certified behavior consultant for canine certified professional groomer, a bunch of other things. I'm also the Dean of academics and an educator at The Whole Pet Grooming Academy, and this my friends and colleagues, is the show where we talk about teaching pets to be good for grooming and other types of care.

[00:00:42] Jumping right in with the senior pets. I wanna start off by saying that. A lot of our owners don't recognize that their pet has started transitioning into those senior years, so they might not be noticing the kind of things that we notice as pet groomers or as the vet tech, or as the vet, or as a trainer.

[00:01:02] But we groomers, I think specifically we're gonna notice things differently because we see these animals at regular intervals. We have a little bit of a break in between. We don't see them every day, but what if we see them once a month, once every two months? It's enough to see a change that maybe an owner has not yet perceived, or maybe they're kind of in denial as someone who has had pets live to be 18 and watching that go.

[00:01:30] And currently my border colleagues are 12 and 13. Well, 13 and a half. I mean, as they get older, we start doing that half year, don't we? We start thinking that we're seeing these changes and it can be really hard to notice.

[00:01:44] Wow. What, what kind of changes am I seeing? So as groomers, we might see those changes first, and we might have to have that talk with an owner about, , a pet's vision changes or maybe hearing changes the moles and lumps and bumps on their skin. Dental issues, that one's really tricky because a lot of our owners are.

[00:02:08] Are kind of putting off dental work because they're kind of worried about putting their animals under anesthesia for something like that. Sometimes , they're too nervous about. Dental work or removing a mole, things like that. And so it's up to us to kind of remind them , these things might be painful.

[00:02:26] We need to talk to them about that. A lot of our senior pets are gonna be sore. They also have some energy level issues, even if they're not particularly sore. Think about an elderly pet as asking grandpa to stand and let go of the walker and just stand there while we cut his hair. I think we need to kind of remind people this may be a process.

[00:02:55] That your pet can't handle anymore? Sometimes just because of the duration. Sometimes just because it takes so long and we can try to slow things down. We can try to change our process, we can try to change the haircuts. There are lots of things that we can do, but first we need to talk to owners about, like, listen, he's, he's getting older.

[00:03:16] Your pet is not a spring chicken anymore. And I feel that, especially right now, like I said, as my dogs are, are getting older, one of them, I, I lift him into the car now. He's good for me, but he's, he's pretty convinced he can still jump in the car, but he's had a couple of times where he fell so.

[00:03:35] I'm lifting my 40 pound dog into the car. The other one often needs help being carried out of the car. He can't do the jump down. One needs the help getting in. The other one needs the help getting down, the occasional stumbles on, something like stairs or trying to get on the sofa. These are all things that we start noticing.

[00:03:54] We start noticing these, but sometimes our owners are really in denial. So recognizing that this pet might be transitioning into more of a senior pet and adapting for this pet's physical needs and maybe emotional needs too. Let's talk a minute about the dog who has never been groomed by a professional, but now because of their health issues, the owner wants to have a groomer do it.

[00:04:23] Maybe this is a dog who is very, very energetic and throughout their whole life they've just naturally worn their nails down. They've never had a real nail trim. I want you to think about how terrifying that might be for a senior pet. I've never been dropped off someplace with a new person what are you doing to my foot?

[00:04:41] We need to help our owners understand that. From the very beginning, they should be thinking about a pet's full lifetime, so that hopefully by that time that pet is a senior, it's not gonna be their first experience with a professional groomer or with a nail trimmer or with a grinder, or whatever the case may be.

[00:05:01] We wanna prepare our pets for those senior years, and sometimes we can start doing that before they're truly a senior. A lot of our owners when these pets that we groom, and I'm saying pets, 'cause this is very much cats too. If they're just an adult and everything's going great, we should also be planning ahead for when this pet starts having some health issues.

[00:05:25] Because let's face it, that's part of the aging process. So there's a good chance. That this pet is gonna start aging and having some issues , and we need to start planning ahead. And that's a great time to talk to owners about some of the extra stuff we can teach their dogs and their cats. And

[00:05:43] I know we don't talk about cats very much. Cats can learn a lot. Cats are very, very smart. And I will tell you, I adopted a kitty when she was nine. She lived to be 19, so I did actually have her for more than half of her life. And I don't think anybody had ever really done any grooming with her. And she was a short hair kitty.

[00:06:04] She was just kind of a little stiff and she couldn't quite reach those hips, and that's where those little mats start on a short hair kitty. And they didn't need to be trimmed out. They just needed to be brushed and brushed often, and she needed baths. And she, had to learn how to do that. I had the time to relax and gently teach her how to do that.

[00:06:26] And you know what? That kitty not only learned about being brushed, but liked being brushed. If we're doing it right, they're like, oh, this is a massage. Oh yeah, you got that spot. I can't reach if the brush was on the floor. She was rubbing the brush. If I was brushing the dog, she was rubbing the dog waiting for her chance to be brushed.

[00:06:46] And this is a kitty who I adopted at nine who had really no interest in brushing. So even an older pet can learn, even an older pet might need more grooming help than they needed when they were younger. So we need to help our owners think about that, and as a case by case basis, I know everybody wants the, the quick answer, Chrissy, what do you do when?

[00:07:11] But, every pet is an individual and so this is where the individual really matters. , let's figure out what this pet might really need if they're starting to lose their vision. One of the things I do on the table is I'll kind of, , move their paw so that they can feel where the edges of the table are, oh, it's this far in front of me.

[00:07:32] And then move their paw out to the side, move their paw out to the other side. And I find that the pets who are kind of losing their vision. And actually some of our older pets or pets that are a little bit wobbly, they tend to lean into the grooming loop a little bit more,

[00:07:46] I don't want them pushing against it. What I want them to do is feel like, ah, I am connected. It's like holding the railing when you're up high. I want them to feel connected. I want them to feel like that's comfortable. So as we start talking about the pets, we need to start thinking, is this comfortable?

[00:08:05] As pets start losing their hearing. What we might find , in dog grooming specifically is that we might have a pet that we need to touch them and get their attention before we put a tool on them so that that vibration isn't startling, so that that tool on their skin isn't startling. So think about how we're going to adjust for vision changes.

[00:08:28] And for hearing changes and they're so normal. . There's a reason why as dog trainers, we're trying to encourage people to teach hand signals and words, because one of the two is likely to be something your pet is going to be able to hear or see once in a while.

[00:08:46] We have a dog who's, got multiple problems, but usually one of those is still there. So hearing changes, vision changes, let's just think about those, energy levels. The dog who just cannot stand in the tub for their full bath, we don't think about that very often until we have an elderly Newfy who requires a lot of scrubbing, who requires a good amount of time in the bathtub, but may not be able to stand very long.

[00:09:17] So if that's the case, we need to adjust for their energy level, and this is where we start tailoring our sessions. I want you to think about how we can break things up differently. What if for maybe the elderly newfie, we do nails and a full brush out on a different appointment than the bath and the drying.

[00:09:39] It's not ideal. Certainly as groomers, we love to see a dog get, you know, bathed and dried and trim 'em up and what's the harm, but what if that endurance run, that amount of standing is something that's really difficult for them, or even that amount of handling. So as they get older, we, they might not have the energy for things like that.

[00:10:01] What if we break it down? What if we say, let's do a brush out appointment? What if we do a brush out appointment one week and then the next week we do the bath and the drying where we know this dog is not likely to have any real tangles? 'cause we did the brush out last week, and we can also, as we start talking about adjusting for these older pets, let's start thinking about teaching them to lie down.

[00:10:30] Let's do it before they're seniors. You know those little dogs that have like the twisted front legs. I'm gonna gonna list off a couple breeds, even though it's not fair. But like the Bassett Hounds, , the Shitzu tend to have like, you know, the, they have their front legs just kind of twisted some of the dachshunds.

[00:10:47] I want you to assume that they're gonna have joint soreness as they get older. We know this, they're gonna have joint soreness, let's talk about how we can help them lie down and allow us to do stuff while they're lying down or in someone's arms As a house call groomer, I have a couple of dogs that I'm like, all right, you're in your owner's arms and your legs can just dangle in whatever position is comfy for you.

[00:11:11] And that made a huge difference for so many of the dogs that I groom. But I'm house call, and the owners don't mind snuggling their dog in their arms. Now that's different than holding and restraining. So I have to make sure there's an owner who understands that like, you are the snuggler and your only job is to whisper sweet nothings in your dog's ear while their legs dangle.

[00:11:31] And I can trim their paws and I can trim their nails. But if we start talking about, well, this dog is not likely to be a dog who can stand for a long amount of time later on in life and maybe not even now. Let's start teaching 'em to lay on their side. Why not? We do it for show dogs. we teach dogs to lay on their side for things that are gonna take a long time.

[00:11:54] Let's just start thinking about that. But we can also teach it later. Some of our older dogs though, by the time they get to be seniors, they're like, I'm not gonna lay on the table. That's crazy. They don't know why we would want that. They've been told their whole life, this is what we do on the grooming table and we stand.

[00:12:10] So let's think about can we start transitioning them to something different and. I did have one customer, I'm gonna share a little story. This older Bichon who had started having seizures, if she was really excited, throwing a ball or playing, could cause a seizure. One of her seizures had caused a stroke, so this is a fragile dog.

[00:12:32] This is not a normal pup anymore, and her groomer had said, I'm just really too nervous to groom her anymore. So she ended up becoming my customer. We decided to make it so that, we would do whatever was most important at that visit and limit it to an hour. And what we usually started off with was nails.

[00:12:53] And she was different on the table. And I, I think we need to. Think about this too. If an animal maybe was never truly comfortable with grooming when they're a senior, they're like, oh, I'm having none of this. And I think she was kind of where she was at at this point. We started doing her nails on her doggy bed on the sofa, and she was totally different.

[00:13:14] Because she knew we don't lie down on the table. She would lie down on her doggy bed on the sofa, and I just kneeled on the floor next to the sofa and trimmed her nails, and we had to just modify things that we can do to make this more comfortable for an animal who's older.

[00:13:31] And fragile, we would do the trim on one appointment and a bath on another appointment. And because she wasn't really comfortable with the dryer, and we'll talk a little bit about some of these senior dogs in the dryer later on. But because she wasn't really comfortable with the dryer, we took her really, really short, really, really short, lots of towel drying and, sometimes we just had to leave her wet and let her air dry in the house so they would have the heat up for her. I mean, so many of our owners are so accommodating for their pets because we love our pets, we love them. So think about how we can adjust for a pet. And did she ever look.

[00:14:12] Gorgeous again. No. No. But did she have a seizure with me? No, she did not. , and we were able to do her, I actually, we weren't sure at that stage in her life how many groomings she had in her, but I groomed her for over a year. So, , she had a lot more grooming appointments. What if that last year these owners had been like, well, you know, she's old now and we can't groom her, and just didn't groom her for a year.

[00:14:38] Oh my God. So think about how we can help our owners find solutions that are specially tailored for their pet's individual needs, and let go of perfect trims, let go of normal grooming situations. There's just a point where grandpa's in hospice, grandpa is not gonna be able to handle, grandma's not gonna be able to handle it.

[00:15:03] You know, think about how we can adjust things. Shorter sessions, how we can position their body. Can we get them to lie down? The elderly Newfy example, those coats that are really, really dense and they take a long time to dry. But if we have a couple layers of towels on the floor and that dog is laying on their left side on a couple of towels while we dry the right side and then flip 'em over, what

[00:15:29] if we can get most of it done. While they're laying down and feeling pretty comfortable, then maybe we can keep these pets comfortable and clean and healthy longer, but we have to adjust for what they feel comfortable with. And a lot of our behavior problems with our seniors come from not understanding their physical limitations.

[00:15:54] And actually a lot of our behavior problems are because of. Physical problems, , Hey, I'm sore. Hey, that doesn't feel comfortable. I'm afraid I'm balancing and I'm gonna fall. These are things that should be across all of the pets that we groom anyway, but especially when they're seniors.

[00:16:11] Because frankly we don't know what kind of pain they might be in, what kind of discomfort they might be in. And that's really important for us to address and to try to think about, and maybe it's a matter of telling an owner, I think, I think as dog groomers, we've all done it, but if you're an owner or a trainer or a vet listening right now, there's a point where we kind of say.

[00:16:30] Your dog is not a show dog and he does not need poodle feet meticulously picking and, running a clipper in between every toe and stuff is not necessary for grooming. We can take those feet short, but yeah, there's just a point where groomers are like, listen, he's not a show dog, and that, is really too much to ask of him.

[00:16:53] And owners buck against it. They're like, well, but I love his little feet and it, I don't want him to have muddy paws. I'm like, but it's, it's so tedious and meticulous and running that clipper blade through in between every single toe. There's just a age where some of these dogs are very uncomfortable with that.

[00:17:13] We have to pivot and we have to adjust. And as groomers, we need to also frame it out as, , I would love for him to look gorgeous, but that's just not important for him right now. That's not the most important thing in your dog's world right now. And, my humane aspect on that is that I want to do what's right for your dog and here are some options.

[00:17:37] , we still have options. There are some great options. I wanna talk about medication. Some of our older dogs are on pain medication. And so if they are, or anxiety meds or things like that, we need to kind of talk to our owners and find out if they are on meds, but also , let's start a discussion with the vet and say if they're on a medication and it's like a regular daily dose that they get normally, is there a.

[00:18:05] Different dosage that maybe they can get if they're having a challenging day, like a dog grooming day, can they have two instead of one? Is there a different dosage? And also how long does that medication. Take to really start affecting them. 'cause sometimes owners are like, well, I gave it an hour before, or 20 minutes before.

[00:18:27] Let's really nail that down that medication is gonna have its sweet spot, let's say 20 minutes after the animal takes it and last for like maybe two hours, then I wanna know that so that we can plan that out and make. Best use of this medication. Most non groomers don't really understand how strenuous grooming is going to be for their dog, so we kind of need to spell it out. We, we do need to say, I'm gonna be asking this dog to let me touch him all over with a variety of stuff in things.

[00:19:00] , I need him to be calm. I need him to be comfortable. I want him to be cooperative with me. I need to touch 'em all over. We're already trying to modify this grooming session, but I just need to know what we can do to make this dog as comfortable as possible. And the veterinarian's role is to say, Ooh. I hadn't thought about how long this might take.

[00:19:21] Another one, I wanna talk about this. This comes up and if you are not a groomer, you may not have this happen, but every groomer has seen this happen. It's usually a senior pet, but. You turn on the high velocity dryer when they're in the tub and they're screaming and inconsolable. Now, I hate the term, and we're gonna talk about that in a second, but I hate the term dryer seizure, but that's generally what people are calling it.

[00:19:51] It's totally unconsolable, full on panic. Usually it's a senior pet. Usually it's in the tub, not necessarily on the table. So I, don't think it's a seizure, but I can't diagnose that, which is why I hate the term dryer seizure. But there is a phenomenon there. There is definitely something happening there.

[00:20:17] And, , from my point of view. I want groomers to know ahead of time if this is a senior pet. I need to be really, really careful about how I turn the dryer on, how far away I am turning it on, if I'm bringing the dryer up toward the tub, or maybe not use the dryer in the tub. I think when they're in the tub, the air pressure and the amount of sound is very, very different than being on the table.

[00:20:42] And I find that if they're on the table, they respond very differently than they do in the tub. So if it's a senior dog, maybe start thinking about that like, Hmm, I'm not gonna try turning on the high velocity dryer in the tub. Or maybe I'm not gonna use the high velocity dryer on an older pet just in case.

[00:20:59] But there is a phenomenon and , I think it has to do with. The air pressure. And I would love for vets to know to give us more details, but let's just put it this way, the problem with calling it a dryer seizure.

[00:21:13] Is that if you say your dog had a seizure today, owners go to their vet and say, the groomer said my dog had a seizure, and they aren't actually looking into what happened. They hear seizure, they think my dog was laying on the floor, out of it and flailing, they're not thinking He was in the tub with his eyes wide open, staring at us and screaming bloody murder, and trying to escape.

[00:21:41] They don't understand the context. We need to describe what we see because again, the individual. Every dog is different. We need to describe what we see because what if that wasn't a seizure? What if that dog panicked because they have never experienced the dryer before and now their owner brings him to the vet and says he had a seizure and they start adjusting meds.

[00:22:06] I want you to think about this. What if we are misleading them to diagnose something incorrectly? We need to describe what we saw I'm not gonna call it a seizure,

[00:22:19] But there is a phenomenon and we need to think about that with our senior pets. Is it just too obnoxious? The high velocity dryer is just too overwhelming, and for so many of them it is, and it can be very, very sudden. It can be a dog that you've been grooming for a long time, and then one day they just lose it when you turn on the dryer.

[00:22:41] But usually when it's in the tub. So just start thinking about some of these things that we can adjust for, things that we can prepare for. Senior pets are gonna be a little bit different. And also, can I add in here? Senior pets are so cute. Oh my God, some of these older dogs are so, so cute. They're all gonna need some extra care, and we have to set our boundaries with our owners and help support our owners too, that your senior pet deserves to. Be comfortable and be clean as best we can. But if they're scared, then no, no, that's not the most important thing in their life right now.

[00:23:24] Adapt and pivot and keep their welfare fully in view.