If He "Hates It" Why Do It More Often? Ep205

Episode 205. This week, we're answering the question if he hates it, why on earth would you do it more often? Oh, this is such a great question. We're gonna have so much fun covering this one because I think we hear that a lot from our owners, but we also hear that from the non-dog trainers. A lot of dog pros who aren't dog trainers might also question this.

So we're gonna break it down this week. I. You are listening to the Creating Great Grooming Dog Show. I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith. I'm a Master Groomer Behavior Specialist, Master Canine Stylist, Master Certified Grooming Expert, Certified Behavior Consultant for Canines, Certified Professional Dog Trainer, Fear Free Certified in grooming and training, and educator and Dean of Academics 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.

What I really want you to understand about why we would do things more often is that we're not asking the pet to endure something that they find frightening. I think people are like, but he hates it.

And so every experience is gonna be something that's terrifying or scary or unpleasant. But what we want to do is we want to set up pleasant experiences. This is an entirely different way than what you're thinking. If you're thinking, well, I mean, I'm only gonna bring him in every six months if I can, because he, he just hates it so much.

We're not trying to force your pets through something and make them endure it more often. Okay. And I don't know who needs to hear this, but I'm gonna throw this out there. We know that that fails. Okay. So even if you're thinking, we'll bring him in more often and eventually he'll get used to it. Only if we are making progress, only if we are trying to make this more pleasant, if we just bring him in more often and get the thing done.

That is not what I'm talking about at all. We're switching from is this a nail trim appointment or a grooming appointment to, is this a learning session? Is this a training session? And everybody think about that for a minute because I know I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again. Don't expect your dog groomer to be a dog trainer.

That's not their job. A lot of groomers are interested in the dog training part. A lot of groomers are out there learning about it and wanting to do it. But if they ask you like, Hey, I need to see him more often. What they're trying to do is help your pet learn that this isn't scary, and that is so different than making him endure something terrifying.

We don't want your dog to hate it. If we're asking you to bring them in more often, it's probably so that we can work on the behavior part, do it as lessons, stop thinking about it in terms of, yeah. Are we getting the grooming done? Are we getting the bath done? He's gonna need to be dried all over.

We're gonna work on drying his head today and, and, and get it completed. , and I know for a long time in the grooming industry, that was the way we did things and it is no longer current. That is not the way we should be doing things. And I haven't been doing things that way for a long time. But I think especially in this modern atmosphere where there's so much access to continuing education.

I provide an awful lot of continuing education, so if you have a, a groomer or an owner, send them to the show. Send them to me. , but if we start thinking about, I want this dog to learn to be comfortable with this, they may never like it. I know for a lot of dog trainers that one's kind of like, oh, but I want 'em to like it, and I do too.

But frankly, do we enjoy going to the dentist or going to the doctor? There are just some things that you're like. You know, we can teach a dog to feel safe. We can teach a dog to be calm, comfortable, and cooperative. Something I say a lot on this show because that is our goal, the perfect grooming experience.

Let's think about, this is a dog who is calm. They're able to take it all in. They're like, yeah, okay. They're comfortable with our tools. They're physically comfortable, ? So if they have, illnesses , or hip problems or whatever, we're also making sure that they're physically comfortable and then they are cooperating with us, which is different than obedient.

Cooperative takes two. It means that , if they indicate that they're a little uncomfortable, I'm gonna pause and see if I can help them be comfortable when we do things like that and then we work slowly and gently, progressively toward the goal of calm, comfortable, and cooperative, , our goal is a dog who doesn't hate it.

But here's the other part that I want you to think about why we need to do it more often. If I taught you something today and then we don't touch it at all again for eight weeks, how much are you gonna retain? How much do you think you're going to remember? Not much. And so if we wanna learn something, we need to do it with more frequency.

We need to practice. . And maybe that's not with the groomer. Maybe you're an owner who's like, I'm happy to practice stuff at home. And there's a future episode about things that you can practice at home. But maybe it's, a collaborative thing where, you know, the owner's working on stuff.

You've sent them with some homework. You're the groomer, you're working on stuff where letting go of perfect trims. This isn't about the hair cutting, the styling, the nail trimming, getting the, the grooming procedures completed. This is now a training lesson and don't expect every groomer to want to do that, and that's okay.

Not every groomer does hand stripping. Not every groomer does hand scissoring, know who you're going to find out if that's something they like to do. Find out. But doing this more often is important because repetition is how we learn things. So I have some examples for repetition.

All right? If I hand you, whether you're an owner or a groomer or another pet professional right now, if I hand you, let's say, , a ball of yarn and a couple of knitting needles and show you some stuff. What do you think you'll remember if you don't pick that up again for eight weeks? Probably not much.

Probably not much at all, but I'll tell you what you will remember if you found it really frustrating, or if you found it neutral, or if you found it fun. That's the kind of stuff you're gonna remember in eight weeks. So even if we have pets that we can't get in more often, you know, the owner's like, well, we're just gonna deal with this every time it gets a haircut.

It's gonna be very, very slow progress. But we can still work toward, I want you to feel comfortable with me and I want you to trust me, but we can make a lot more progress if we actually practice. We do this in dog training all the time. , you go to an average obedience class or puppy class when they're little.

You go once a week and you have all your homework you're supposed to work on during the week. This is not a new idea, and we can transfer this to grooming processes. And we should be. And many of us have been for many, many years. So when an owner says, Hey, I don't understand why you would want me to bring him in more often.

Like nobody wants to groom him. He doesn't wanna be groomed well, let's just get it done. When it needs to be done is setting that dog up to fail. It's going to make that problem much, much worse. And , I know somebody out there is like, wait, how much worse could it get? So let's imagine you have a dog who is, , really healthy at this point.

. And he hates it, quote unquote, hates it. 'cause what does that actually mean? Becomes aggressive or, is trembling and shaking and scared. And then as that dog gets older, let's say that dog is now 14 and starting to have other health issues and has a heart problem and maybe seizure disorders and stuff.

And the groomer says, you know, he's never really liked it, but I'm just not comfortable grooming him anymore. Oh, now what are you gonna do? That was preventable. Yeah, I know. So right now, look at the young dogs that you're grooming who are nice and healthy, or the adult dogs who are nice and healthy and start thinking, if I can teach this pet to trust us now when he is older.

And he actually has some health problems. We're not gonna have to turn him away. We're not gonna have to try to sell an owner the, um, I'm gonna say the, the big myth of, oh, send them to the veterinarian for sedation grooming. And that is a big myth. Let's talk about that myth.

You might send them to a groomer at a vet's office because there is a doctor there. And so if this dog does have a medical emergency, which with some of our older dogs or our dogs with known health problems, that's a great choice, if there's a medical emergency, if this dog has a problem, there's a veterinarian on site, but the idea that they can do something different for grooming a lot of these dogs.

Are not good candidates for being sedated for grooming because now they're 14 and they have a lot of health problems. Think about how many pets, the owner's like, well, if we have to put 'em under sedation for something else, maybe we'll take care of that little mole or that, whatever it is.

But we're really worried about his heart murmur. , maybe they're really worried about knocking him out for some procedure and we're saying like, oh yeah, every eight weeks you're gonna knock him out for a grooming. It's not gonna happen. Okay.

What if instead. We spend our time working on teaching this dog to trust us and that it's safe because that can have a lasting impression later. And how do we do that? Repetition. Repetition, repetition. Why do you guys know the terms calm, comfortable, and cooperative?

Because I repeat it so often. That's why. Well, repetition is how we learn. So I want you to think about if the dog doesn't like something and we want them to be able to handle it, we need to do more repetition. So I'm gonna give you another example too. Let's say, because I do fly ball, let's say you only practice once every eight weeks.

And you don't work on anything at home. How long do you think it's going to take for your dog to even learn a box turn, which is when they're at the end of the lane and they hit the box, get the ball, once every eight weeks, probably gonna take you a couple years. . How long do you think it would take for your dog to be able to actually go down the lane, do the box turn, get the ball, carry it back over with no distractions?

Yeah. Years. If you are only doing something once every two months or once a month with no practicing in between, like that's somebody else's job. Do not let owners try to tell you that it's your job. Dog trainers don't put up with that. We're like, um, you need to be on board with this and you need to be working on this 'cause I don't live with your dog.

If you are only working on it once a month, like an hour or two a month, an hour or two, every two months, you are not gonna make progress. That's why we have dogs who are eight years old, who are still terrified of things, which is ridiculous to me. but let's say that we see that we have a problem, we're gonna identify it, and we're gonna work on it in a variety of ways.

Maybe that's some owner homework. Maybe that's the groomer, seeing that dog once a week for a little while until that problem through training has resolved. What? Resolving problems through training. Yes, training and repetition. And I know when I, when I say it that way, it probably seems like, well, that's really common sense, but we have to let go of the idea that we're selling haircuts and nail trims.

Let go of that idea. This dog is not well prepared for our services here in the grooming environment, whether that be, house call, mobile shop, , whatever that environment is, this pet isn't well prepared for it. So we need to come up with some training plans. To help this pet be better for it.

That is why even if a dog really hates doing something, quote unquote hates, because that's, uh, very, very subjective. But even if a pet, generally has had some bad experiences or gets scared or becomes aggressive, which is a fear response, okay, you behave aggressively because you are uncomfortable with something.

You don't behave aggressively with things that you're comfortable with. So think about that. Okay. , but what if we work on that problem without trying to do the nail trim? We're working on the training part. And like I said, a lot of groomers do not wanna do this. Or they want to, and they're ready to do it, and they're having trouble explaining it to a customer in a way that a customer's like, oh.

Oh, right. This is a unique place with a unique set of tools and skills that I really can't entirely train at home. You might think you can train all the things at home. If you're a dog trainer and you're like, listen, I know my dog. I can train all the things at home. You might feel that way. But there are things about the grooming environment that are really tricky.

, we all have different equipment. It's not like you can say like, oh, and the dog understands clippers. 'cause we all have a variety of clippers. I mean, most groomers have clippers and trimmers and like three or four versions nevermind all the other things that are available

so think about repetition, repetition, repetition to make something better. I'm going to share a story and then I'll wrap it up. I had a dog in 2001 who ripped her Duke Claw. When we were out in the field playing around and . After that Delaw healed. When I would do her nails, it was that one delaw that she was still kind of scared and hesitant about. You know, she'd brace herself for it. I hope that, I hope you guys can understand what I mean by that, but kinda like the deep breath and the turning away and the leaving her paw in the hand, but clearly not comfortable with it.

Now, what Chrissy in 2001 did before I knew any better before I really thought about it, was I only did that during nail trimming. What I would change now is that, oh my God, what was I thinking? I even live with this dog. I could have been working on touching that nail every day as the owner, if she were a grooming customer, I could have said, can you just bring her in once a week, and we're just gonna work on touching that nail and getting the clippers near it, and just getting her used to that again. But instead, I only worked on it when we needed to do nail trimming, and I'd say it took about a year for her to be comfortable with it again.

Uh, Chrissy of 2001, I know you were so close, but she didn't hit the mark, so it's an example of it's gonna take a lot longer. If we're not treating it like a training problem, if we're treating it like, oh, well, we'll just take care of that every time we need to get the thing done. Which also means that every time I did nails, I completed trimming that Duke Claw.

And you might be thinking, well, yeah, that's the job, but what if training doesn't involve always completing trimming the Duke Claw? That's the reason why we wanna see them more often. What if we can get them comfortable with us reaching for the de claw? What if we can get them comfortable with us lining up the clippers on the de claw before we need to trim it, before it needs to be trimmed, before there's any pressure to complete the nail trimming?

, When we think about it that way, it becomes really clear like, oh, wait a minute. What if I had spaced that out , as an owner. Touching her leg more and more often, seeing what she's comfortable with, right? When we're touching, and like I said, there's a future episode for the owners, but when we're touching, we're also looking for calm, comfortable, and cooperative.

So it's not about I need to touch your leg and I need to do this thing, and making them all nervous. We don't want nervous. If you're doing it right, it's about as interesting as watching paint dry. So what we're doing is , we're trying to figure out where her comfort zone is and expand on it. Right?

As an example, what I would do differently with the dog that I had in 2001, I. What would I do differently now as, as an owner, I would be working on her being comfortable with me reaching for that area and working on touching that area as she became more comfortable with it. And I would only work on the nail trimming part when she was ready.

So instead of taking a year for her to be comfortable with it, I'm pretty confident it would've taken, I don't know, two or three weeks. And that's the other part, when we say bring a dog in more often, it's to do the foundation work so that you can have effortless grooming later. This is foundation work.

This is really important, basic stuff so that this dog can be a breeze to groom later. So think about it. If even if the owner's like, I mean, if he hates it, why on earth would I bring him in more often? Because we're trying to teach him. That it's safe and we have a lot of things to work on before we can be completing the things that he thinks are unsafe, the things that he thinks are scary, unpleasant, uncomfortable, and or scary.

We need to work on that feeling. We need to work on how to do it with them. Every dog is going to be different. I know that's frustrating for people, but every dog's gonna be different, but we need to work on slowly and gently progressing. And helping them feel safe.

And then that lasts a lifetime, which is pretty cool. Do you want more? You can come see me. It's a pet pro classic. I'm teaching, on the Saturday Pet Pro Classic. This year is in Dallas and June 6th through ninth, and I'm teaching five classes on Saturday, June 7th. I have online classes at the whole pet grooming Academy.

We have the Master Groomer Behavior Specialist Diploma Program. So if you're an experienced groomer who wants to just work on the behavior stuff, oh yeah. We can geek out together. That's a long program. It takes about eight months to do. I teach them on Mondays and Wednesdays and then, oh, and do start dates are, are posted.

And then I also have smaller, shorter online classes through the whole pet. So if you wanna just do a workshop style, have access to an online class for a month, I have some of those too. We have one called Groom Smart that is up and ready. Links in the show notes, everybody Have a good week. Bye.