The Coffee Table Game Ep206

Episode 206 This week, we are talking about a game that anybody can play with their dog to help them be more prepared. For grooming and other types of care. Super easy. Young dogs. Old dogs, dogs with no issues, dogs with plenty of issues. This is easy stuff that anyone can do.

You're 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 an educator and Dean of Academics at The Whole Pet Grooming Academy. WholePetNH.com

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.

This week we're talking about a game that we can play. Something that we can all do at home groomers. You can do this with your own pets trainers. You can do this with your own pets owners. This is perfect for owners. If you're a groomer or a trainer, this is great homework for any owner. Basically, if you have a pet, whether it's a dog or a cat, this is something you can easily try to incorporate.

So the first part of this game is that you have to understand that we need the animals to be calm, comfortable, and cooperative the whole time. If we're doing this right, this looks super boring, ah, so boring. We want it to look boring. We're looking for a dog who is calm. So if they're overly silly, they're not calm, and that might be where you start, is trying to figure out how to calm your dog down. If they're super nervous, they're not calm. Okay, so maybe you can't move on to the rest of the game, but step one is to understand that calm, comfortable, and cooperative is what we're looking for.

We cover that a lot on this show. There are lots of other episodes you can go to, pretty much, we mentioned it every time. , but you should recognize your own pet's comfort zone. That's our next step in this. Where is your pet comfortable and at what point do they maybe show some signs of discomfort?

I want you to be aware of that and be watching for that. You have to start where your dog or cat or any other pet is happy. Where they're happy and where they're relaxed. That's a really important part that we want them to be a willing participant in this.

Part of why I have this game is because owners sometimes think, oh, the problem is, is that he's not good with nails. So they go home and they harass their dog by touching their nails a lot. And it's counterproductive and I understand where they're coming from and why they think that would be helpful, but that's not what we want.

, where are we comfortable and how can we build out from that? How can we expand that comfort zone? So it should look like nothing is happening. Nothing at all. So here's a question that I often hear. What if the pet isn't comfy at all with me touching them yet? Then this game is not for you yet.

Okay? If your pet is not comfortable with you touching them at all, you actually have a much bigger problem. You do not have a grooming problem. You have a training problem at home that must be addressed. You should be able to touch your dog, so you're gonna need to talk to a trainer. Or your vet. Find out if there's a health reason, but this game isn't for you yet, yet, don't worry.

You will get there if your pet won't let you touch them. You also have no business bringing them to a grooming shop. I know I'm gonna say that again for the people in the back row who need to hear it, in case you didn't hear that part. If your pet doesn't let you touch them and isn't comfortable with you touching them, you don't bring them to the hair salon and expect a stranger to be able to do all that stuff, you have a much bigger problem.

Okay. Um, and you can contact me directly and we can set up a time and talk about something like that. I do online consultations. We can talk and we can set something up. If you can't find a trainer local to you, but you have a much bigger problem than a grooming problem, if your pet won't let you touch them, your pet isn't really a pet yet.

I know, take that in. I'm sorry. Somebody out there needs to hear it. Your pet is still kind of feral if they won't let you touch them, and bringing them to the grooming shop would be a little bit like trapping a raccoon in your garage and hoping the groomer can do it. It's simply not the case. So we need to figure out where your pet is comfortable and we want them to be comfortable.

We want them to be willing to do this and be relaxed. So calm, comfortable, and cooperative is the goal. No matter what we're doing, really important, I want owners to think this is going to look boring. Oh, so boring. Beautifully boring. Okay? We don't want them to get upset. We don't want them to be squirming.

We don't want them to be uncomfortable. We want them to think this is just so normal. The next part of the game is that we're gonna normalize touching all over, and I call this game the coffee table game.

So first step. Is, you're probably hanging out with your dog at some point, or cat. We're, we're gonna include the cats in this too. You are probably hanging around at some point together.

If my dog is laying on the sofa next to me . That's a perfect time to start this, and I'm gonna start touching in places that I think they are totally fine with. Just with my hands. Most dogs, that's gonna be kind of like their shoulder, top of their head. They're like, oh yeah, sure, no problem.

But start touching them all over. Start moving around, move around their body. Go from the shoulder and down toward their elbow. I. And slowly down their leg and wait to see if they seem uncomfortable. 'cause if they seem uncomfortable, you're gonna back off a little bit. You're gonna slide back to a comfortable spot and you're just gonna chill out there and you are gonna touch 'em all over.

And then you're gonna move down their rib cage. You're gonna touch their back legs. Groomers touch every single teeny tiny millimeter of that dog over and over and over again. There is no spot on your dog that is taboo. Or cat, no spot on your cat. That is taboo. You are to touch everything. Okay? You're under their tail.

You're in between the pads of their feet at this point. Just touching, just touching. Now, notice I haven't said anything about treats, 'cause frankly, we don't need to add treats to this game. This is all about just relax and just do stuff. If you really like working with treats. I understand. I get it. I like working with treats too.

But I would caution you about that with this game. This, because being overly excited is another tricky part. I. Okay. We don't want them overly excited 'cause we don't want them moving around. Grooming is moving around with sharp tools all over a dog's body, and we need to keep these animals safe. So we don't want them jumping around and we don't want them thinking that this is a treat game.

This is not a treat game. So you're touching your pet all over while they happen to be laying down beside you. Awesome. So you can increase difficulty level by maybe doing that more., Maybe doing it longer, maybe having them stand, maybe having them stand on the floor while you touch them all over and pick feet up and lift ears, and lift tails,

so think about you're gonna be touching 'em all over, okay? When your pet is like, yeah, this is just normal. People just touch me all over. Okay, whatever. Oh, sometimes I stand and they touch me all over. Sometimes I sit, they touch me all over. Not a big deal. Then we move on to picking up random objects from your coffee table and touching 'em all over with random stuff.

At this point, I don't want you using brushes or combs or nail clippers because as soon as I put a brush in somebody's hand, they start brushing. Your pet might not be ready for that yet. So the easy way around that is to pick up random objects, pick up a pen. Touch your dog all over with it. Pick up the remote control for the tv.

Touch 'em all over. Pick up a coaster. Touch 'em all over a book, a jar candle. , Think about the kind of things that you might just have randomly, just kind of around the house. Pick it up. Touch your dog all over with it. Here's a tricky part. Owners will often ask me, well, I don't want 'em to think those things are toys.

Uh, that's part of the lesson. I don't want them to think anything we're touching 'em with are toys either. So don't do it with your dog's toys because we don't want this to be, I grab the thing in mommy's hand or daddy's gonna play with me with the thing in his hand kind of a game. This is, Hmm. Okay.

People just touch me with the random stuff. The purpose of this game is for your dog to feel so comfortable with like, oh, look at that. They picked up something I've never seen before. You can let them look at it, maybe sniff it. Tell 'em what it is, but they aren't to play with it and then touch 'em all over.

Now that doesn't directly translate exactly to dog grooming because the tools and stuff that we use. Often make sound and we're gonna be doing different motions with it. We're gonna be brushing, scissoring, clippering. There are lots of verbs with it that we're gonna be doing, but if your pet is used to being touched all over, that is huge.

It's huge. I wish every dog that came into grooming was totally a hundred percent comfortable being touched all over and being touched all over with random stuff. Where a point where a pet just thinks this is just normal. Huh? Neat. What's that new thing? Hey look, my new friend is doing the coffee table game with me, and apparently this tool makes a weird noise,

it's a huge difference. So if we can get them comfortable with you at home trying to pick five random things. And then you can raise difficulty by having them stand or touching them with that thing longer. One of the biggest things I've been hearing lately, and it's coming from the dog training world, is talking about how, a veterinary procedure could take up to 10 minutes.

And I'm like, yeah, it could, that is nothing compared to the endurance run of a grooming session. So if you're a trainer out there and you think like 10 minute run. Is a goal, you need to increase that. 'cause dog grooming, we're holding those dogs' attention for about an hour and a half kind of average.

Some dogs are an hour, some dogs are two. Some of the doodles and stuff could take three hours to groom. We need to hold their attention and focus longer. So owners , can I do this through an entire movie?

Can I do this through an entire episode of a show? Can I do this through the nightly news? Have some sort of an idea of, am I doing this for half an hour? Am I doing this for 45 minutes? Again, we want your dog to just be relaxed and think this is normal, you are preparing them for being touched all over.

By a stranger or by their new friend at the grooming shop who isn't quite family. It takes a while for us to be, to get the family vibe with the dog. But, um, hopefully we don't stay strangers long. But you're, you're getting them used to being touched all over by a groomer and doing it for a while. With weird stuff and things, and this is a great way to prepare your pets.

This will save so much time when they're in the groomers because this is gonna prepare them and help them feel comfortable with it. The other thing about this is that you as an owner are gonna have a much better idea of what kind of things your pet isn't ready for, and you can tell the groomer that.

You can say like, listen. I know he can't handle a very long amount of time, and we can adjust. The modern groomer is gonna say, listen, if your dog absolutely cannot handle more than 15 minutes, maybe we're only doing a bath, not doing any drying, or maybe we're only doing a brush out, or maybe this is a nail trim appointment.

We need to work on things more, but we can adjust for what you think your pet is ready for and we can help you work on it. So. This game, the coffee table game. Again, calm, comfortable, cooperative. If you're doing it right, your pet never gets worried, ever. Oh, that's so awesome. So if your pet doesn't let you touch them, I.

You might not actually have known that before. You might've been like, well of course he'll let me touch him. I pet him every day. But if he's laying on the couch beside you and you find out there are some spots that this dog is like, you cannot touch me there. Oh no. And they start giving you a hard eye.

I need you to think, I need to bring him to the vet and tell the vet that and find out if there's something sore . I'm gonna add in here too. I think, a lot of people will bring them to the vet, but not tell the vet why. It's like, well, you know, like, oh, brought him to the vet, everything's fine. Did you talk to your vet?

You have to tell the vet I'm working on touching and handling. And, um, I thought he was gonna be fine for me touching him everywhere, but about the time I started getting down toward his hips, he started stiffening up and giving me some side eye. And I just really wanna make sure that he's healthy and that there's nothing physically wrong down in that area.

Now they're gonna say, oh. Let's take a closer look at that area. Let's see if there's a physical reason before we think it's a training reason. Okay. Um, a lot of our dogs do have some pain issues and sometimes it's because they're older. Sometimes it's a younger dog. Maybe there's just something that hurts.

So we're going to. Discover things and maybe you will find that your pet is just totally fine with any sort of touching. Awesome. You know what? Honestly, so many of our dogs are, but this is still going to help them at the groomer. This is still going to help them at the vet. This is just really, really helpful game.

So let's run it through again. Calm, comfortable, and cooperative. Your pet is someplace hanging out, kind of ready to take a nap. They're awake but they're not totally asleep, and you're like, this is a good time to snuggle. If it's a good time to snuggle, it's a good time to start touching you all over if your pet is comfortable with it.

Maybe see if you can get 'em to stand while you touch 'em all over. When they're comfortable with that. It's time to start taking random objects off of your coffee table. You can show it. You can tell 'em what it is. You can let 'em sniff it, but it's not a toy and we're gonna touch 'em all over. And that could be laying down.

That could be sitting. That could be standing different levels of difficulty by asking for more. But we're gonna touch 'em all over with weird stuff and things. They aren't gonna get to play with it, and we're gonna then start working on doing it for longer. I. So wait and see if, , you can do that through an entire episode of a show or through a movie, because this is gonna prepare them for the kind of things that they're going to have to do at a groomer.

So that is the coffee table game, and hopefully you guys have fun with it, and I will see you next week.

Do you want more? You can come see me at the Pet Pro classic I'm teaching five classes on Saturday, June 7th. I also have online classes at the whole pet Grooming Academy. You can take a short class, or you can go on to do the whole diploma program.

The Master Groomer Behavior Specialist program is for experienced groomers who want to really delve into the behavior part, and you can find all of that information at creatinggreatgroomingdogs.com. Don't forget to share this show with. Groomers, owners, trainers, and any pet professional that you think is going to help pets be good for grooming.

Have a great week. Bye.