The Groom Pod & Creating Great Grooming Dogs

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: We're on the Groom Pod, but we're also on the Creating Great Grooming Dog show.

And I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith, and I'm a Master Groomer Behavior Specialist, a Master Certified Grooming Expert, a Certified Professional Groomer, a Certified Behavior Consultant for Canines, a Certified Professional Dog Trainer, blah, blah, blah. So many things. And I'm an educator and the Dean of Academics at The Whole Pet Grooming Academy.

My show is about teaching dogs to be good for grooming and other types of care.

Susy: Hello, groomers. You found the Groom Pod. Welcome to our virtual salon. My name is Susie and I'm your host. I'm a mobile groomer from Seattle, Washington. And anybody you knows me will tell you. I love to talk, especially about my job. And one of my favorite people to talk to is my friend and mentor and the co-star of this show, the Curator of Ingredients, Ms. Barbara Bird.

Well, Barbara Bird is taking a much-needed preparation week for the webinar. She's working on the webinar, so as an exciting change, Chrissy Neumyer Smith is going to be recorded on video so you guys can actually watch.

So, welcome to episode 451 of the Groom Pod, recorded on June 29th, 2025, in Snohomish, Washington, and Nashua, New Hampshire.

So, Chrissy, you had the pleasure of attending and participating in the US Pet Pro Classic, which had a behavior focus. It did have a behavior focus.

Tell me what it was like. 'cause all those behavior type people in one spot, it must have just been dog grooming. Heaven.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: We had a lot of fun. Had a lot of fun.

Susy: And Chrissy is my behavior mentor and I think the best behavior speaker out there. So I'm always honored to have her on. So they did hire you to speak, right? You did some speaking at the Pet Pro Classic.

I did. I had a lot of fun.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: We talked about it, gosh, I think last year at the Pet Pro Classic or maybe before, , about having more behavior stuff and really taking that in a much more serious route instead of just being the occasional class. And, , they had two full days of behavior at the Pet Pro Classic this year.

And one E each day was like five classes. I taught five classes on Saturday. Five. That's impressive. It's a lot that is. And one of them was on, wasn't in the behavior track, one of them was on the business track. So it was about, , so you're a business owner, how do we integrate this behavior stuff into , making your business choices?

So,

Susy: boy, that's a big part of being a behavior type focused specialist because charging for the time you spend with the dogs in training is as valuable as the time you spend with the haircuts. It's not always about the haircuts.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I think, uh, a lot of groomers feel pressured too. Do beautiful haircuts because they're still thinking we're selling haircuts, but we're selling haircutting services and just trying to help people, even if, even if the only thing they gather from this is that, oh, wait a minute, they're haircutting services and many of these dogs are not well prepared for our services, so we need to sell them behavior services.

Don't go broke. No one's asking you to do this for free. Charge what you're worth. Decide if it's something you wanna offer or not. I mean, not all of us do hand scissoring or hand stripping. You don't have to do behavior stuff. But a lot of groomers, I feel, are really pressured to get trims done and it's not safe.

Susy: Were the classes well attended? Like are we seeing an upswing in the interest?

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Yeah. Yeah. And um, I was, I was pleased that it was a really good audience. They were really involved and many of them had never heard of my show. Wow. Yeah. How is that even possible? I know, thanks. But, but they were like, wait, what?

Hold on, let me write that down. , so that's good. That means that I'm getting fresh faces who aren't like, oh yeah, I wanna attend Chrissy's class because I know what Chrissy teaches. Now I'm seeing people who are like, I'm interested in behavior and like, oh, I think I'm gonna sit down for five hours of Chrissy, which was a lot.

I can't do five hours of Chrissy. I dunno why anybody else did. It's a lot of Chrissy. That's a lot of hand puppets and goofing around . But I, I am a big goof, so we have fun.

Susy: That's what I like about you. You have a lighthearted approach to a very serious topic. So , did you get to do networking?

Like were, did you get to hang out with people who were interested in behavior or not so much? I,

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I did. We hung out a lot in between classes. , because of stuff happening in my personal life, I wasn't able to attend the full conference, so I did a travel day, a teaching day, and another travel day's hard.

So I didn't get as much as I wanted to because there was a lot of really great stuff there. , a couple people I never even got a chance to run into, because of stuff happening at home, which is good. I mean, you know, high school graduations and things like that. But it was so much fun. It was so much fun, and I loved the interest , in the behavior part.

I think, we tend to think about grooming conferences and how to make pretty round heads, but do we need 5,000 versions of how to make a round head?

Susy: That's true and answering the same question over and over again. I think it's great to have different stuff, opportunities to learn about business, opportunities to learn about behavior, opportunities to learn about skin and coat so important

Susy: /So let's head right on to learning about Chrissy. We're gonna learn a little bit about Chrissy and all of her certifications. We were actually talking a little bit about certification before we turn on the microphones. So it is a topic that inspires both of us. To chat quite a bit off topic. So let's talk about some of the certifications you have.

You've got Master Groomer Behavior Specialist, which I have too. And that's the program that you're teaching at The Whole Pet Academy and Yep. , that certification is running kind of ongoing, isn't it?

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Yes. So that's, actually a diploma program. Little bit different than a certification. It's formal education through a school.

So the comparison I make 'cause groomers tend to think about certifications, the comparison I make is that no one asks me to do anything more on my associate's degree. Nobody's like, are you still doing creative arts? Their associate's degree is yours forever. Your diploma is yours forever.

It's through a licensed post-secondary trade school through New Hampshire. So recognized as real education. But that program is, 32 weeks long. It's four eight week classes. It takes you about eight months to complete, and we dive deep into how to work behavior cases as dog groomers. So it doesn't mean you're a dog trainer at the end, but it does mean that you are well versed in cooperative care, consent, grooming and those kind of, , finer points that many of us as groomers expose ourselves to, but don't really know about.

Is that a good answer? There's

Susy: testing and all. Yes, there's testing and all kinds of stuff. I was So weekly Zoom calls?

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Yeah, weekly Zoom calls where we're actually discussing it. So it's a live class.

Susy: It is a live class and it is a lot more than just a certification. It actually really changes the way you think about grooming and the way you interact with the dogs and the way you interact with the people.

So I highly recommend it. Thank you. You're also a master.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I was gonna say, I also have had a number of people say that that first level, they start using stuff right away. I think people start thinking like, well, what do I get at the end? But I started having people write, testimonials for me at the end of the first level.

Because what they're finding is that they start using it and they're like, this is really changing the way I think about what I'm doing and the processes I use and the tools that I reach for.

Susy: It's magic. I'm telling you. It's really, especially if you have any interest in all in dogs that have a difficult time with the process, this is definitely a good place to go to learn more.

And if you want just some free information that'll help you with your grooming every day. It's Chrissy's podcast creating, create grooming dogs, which I find to be really fun and interesting and goofy and you learn something and, it also changes the way you groom for sure. It's really amazing.

So what's a Master Canine Stylist?

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: So, Master Canine Stylist is a new program. We started at The Whole Pet Grooming Academy.  I think that many of us in the grooming world have wanted to do master level, but we don't do show dogs, and we don't see purebred dogs, and that has made it out of reach. And at the whole pet we kind of decided, well, other people are doing it that way.

Let them be the best at doing that version. We came up with a program that is testing out of grooming school, doing all of the things, all of the assignments that you would need to do to prove that you could pass the master canine stylist at a grooming school. So you can test out on the dogs that you groom, you can test out with your current clientele.

Everybody has some little dog that they do a cute scissor head or something cute. You don't need to have a terrier in show coat. You don't need to do all of that stuff. But also the bigger emphasis on cleanliness, on anatomy and physiology on your business, on having testimonials and references and making sure that you are presenting yourself as the kind of professional that really should charge a lot of money for your work.

I like that.

Susy: Then Master Certified Grooming Expert.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: So that one is IAPEG. We, the school, we kind of paired up with them to try to come up with a certification that requires continuing ed. This has been a B in my bonnet for years, that the grooming industry doesn't require continuing education to maintain certifications.

Certifications are supposed to be a way to continue your professional development.

You're supposed to take your. Professional credentials and then pool it together and see what the rest of the industry is doing. So if you went to like trade school, X, Y, Z, and then you get into the professional world and they're like, oh, trade school X, Y, Z didn't teach you all the things that we expect for you as an accountant.

Your organization certifications, fill that in and you're supposed to do continuing education to maintain it. You don't get to keep a certification forever. And yet in the grooming industry, that's what we've been doing. The training industry. Yeah. And the training industry in parallel, uh, started doing more of the continuing ed and they started that a long time ago.

I got certified as a certified professional dog trainer. The first year it was offered, I believe that was in 2005. And then I got the certified behavior consultant for canines the first year it was offered. And those require approved continuing ed. So 36 hours every three years for the dog trainer. One a different 36 hours every five years for the behavior consultant one, or you can retest.

And what I have observed is that the dog training industry, it became difficult to stay out of date. Because you have to do so many hours of continuing ed. It's what I want for groomers. Like, let's get approved continuing ed. Let's make sure that we're all staying up to date and taking our careers seriously and being taken seriously as a professional.

Susy: Excellent. I am fully in support of that. I think continuing education is important for any trade that you're working in. Whether you're an electrician or you're a dog groomer, you should always continue to learn and change and grow with the industry. So then you've got Certified Professional Groomer.

Mm-hmm. Yep. That's the IPG one. Okay. That's the attitude. Yeah. Yeah. Certified Behavior Consultant for Canines. That's the one you just talked about. Yep. Certifi, the Certification Council for

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Professional Dog Trainers offers both of those. Okay.

Susy: And then Fear Free Certified Groomer and Trainer. That means you're teaching Fear Free.

Right.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: No, that means that I've, I passed the Fear Free course for groomers and the Fear Free course for trainers. Oh, they're different. There are two different ones, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. And I think a lot of people put a lot of emphasis on those. But can I just tell you those took a weekend? I, I still see the Fear Free program as like it's a great start.

Yeah. Take it. It's worth it. But also it's a weekend.  I completed it in the weekend.

Susy: Yeah.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Veterinarians and the vet text have an entirely different set of courses that they take.

But the grooming one was really kind of basic, but it was good. Basic good. That's good.

And then SATs certified trainer. What's SATs? That is Kayce Cover's bridge and Target training. Syn Alia Training Systems. Yeah. If you're

Susy: interested in Kayce, uh, Chrisy does a really cool interview with her, and I recommend listening to it twice because of that.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Kayce Cover is one of the really, really interesting trainers out there. A lot of zoo experience, a lot of exotic animals, and she brings that into dog training in a unique way.

Susy: Yes. And she's fun to listen to. And then, yeah, most importantly, I think lately is the educator and dean of academics at Whole Pet Grooming Academy.

And when did you end up with that title, Dean of Academics?

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I think we did. That sounds cool. Gosh. Um, I've been doing it for about two years, but I don't remember when we, when we made the name. But my very cool role at my role at The Whole Pet is I, I do some teaching, so I'm, I do the Master Groomer Behavior Specialist course.

I'm also one of the evaluators for the Master Canine Stylist. But I help educators come up with their courses and help fact check and help make sure that, that the kind of things that we're promoting through our school are up to date and occasionally circling back and going, Ooh, let's make some changes.

There's new information, which is what you want from a school. That's what you want. Yeah. You want people who are like, Ooh, hey, wait a minute. Just like Barbara Bird. Like I learned something new. You know, that we want to be up to date. So that's part of my role there.

Susy: Oh, very nice. And in case she didn't get a, uh, she's generally a cool chick, so we're happy to have her here.

That doesn't come with letters, but it does come with a lot of honor. So I think that I'm a huge

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: goofball. That's definitely a thing.

Susy: So I had fun this morning as I do often. Channeling my Barbara Bird and I went on to AI and I asked a question and I got an interesting answer. I thought it was pretty good, so I'm gonna read it. I asked ai, what does consent grooming mean? And they said, consent refers to a cooperative approach where the groomer prioritizes the dog's comfort and wellbeing, allowing the dog to communicate its willingness.

And I added or not to participate in the grooming process. It's all about trust and ensuring the dog feels safe and has influence on the process. What do you think of that statement? Good answer.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: That always pretty good for ai? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been trying to train a AI to answer that way, so Oh,

Susy: well it worked.

Susy: Yeah. Barbara often affects the answers that ai, so I know it's possible. So that's pretty cool. We appreciate that. So, um, zoos often use. Consent for their treatment process and for medications. And if you watch any of the zoo shows on tv, you get to see it in actual practice with animals that people would say, well, you can't possibly train that cheetah to come over and get an insulin shot.

That's absolutely crazy. But they do it and we can do it too. We can get them to actively participate in our process also. And is consent, is consent a practical tool for grooming?

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Yes. Yes. I think what we have to do is we have to stop thinking about, I am selling haircuts. And I know I said that earlier, and I say that a lot because I think a lot of the time we're like, but he has to look great.

And instead, if we're thinking about is this dog having a pleasant experience, I stopped calling it a positive experience. Right? 'cause I hear that way too often and people are like, well, we had a positive experience. We got the trim done today. And he knows I wasn't mad at him and that he didn't get hurt.

But that doesn't mean the pet had a pleasant experience or that we were even working toward a pleasant experience. Because a lot of the problems that we see in dog grooming, we have accidentally created I, I raise my hand as someone who has accidentally created them. I've made all the mistakes, which is why I don't get upset with groomers who are doing things in a different way because I'm like, oh, I've been there, I've been there.

I've made that mistake. But consent grooming doesn't mean, oh, he doesn't want us to do his nails, so nevermind. It's about why is he uncomfortable with us doing his nails or brushing his tail or trimming around his lip, or whatever that case may be. Why is the dog uncomfortable with it and how can we teach them to be comfortable for it for a 15 year lifespan of regular groomings, we always have to think the future too.

If we can teach them to be good for it and be willing participants, then that problem behavior rarely crops up again, which is pretty as astounding. I think that it all starts.

Susy: Yeah, that's pretty amazing. I think it all starts with being able to read the body language and actually tuning into that, because obviously dogs only speak when they are really pressured.

You know, doing the growling and the barking happens kind of way late down the scale of when they're not enjoying the process, shall we say. So I think that looking for things like. Anxiety or licking or yawning or spatulate tongue or backing away. Turning away. Those are, they may be subtle to people who don't work with dogs all day, but we do work with dogs all day and we should be able to pick up on that stuff way before they have to use their voice.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: We should. And you mentioned spatulate tongue, and I think a lot of people don't know what that one is. So if a dog is panting because they are just tired or hot, their tongue looks like just a wet noodle. It's just hanging out like a banana peel, a spatulate tongue is when it's curled, like you could almost pool water into it like a, like a ladle, like a spoon.

And their cheeks are flaring out differently when they're panting. It's a very different look, and it's definitely a stress pant instead of an I'm hot or I'm tired. It's really easy to miss. And sometimes I take video of myself grooming, which I encourage everyone to do. You learn a lot about yourself, watching yourself groom.

Being a fly on the wall, watching yourself groom. And you'll notice things about behavior that maybe you didn't notice in the moment. And once in a while, I miss that. I'm like, oh, you're panting, but is a dog who's panting calm? No. So we should already be trying to help them be more calm. But sometimes that's an I'm, I'm tired, I'm stressed.

Sometimes it's just I like to pant because I'm silly goose. Right. Sometimes dogs will do that because they're like, I'm really silly. And they're like, ha. Because they're trying to ride that wave of being silly. But to understand the body language is huge. I know. Here we are in audio trying to explain it too.

Susy: Yeah. So we're gonna be video also so that Oh, that's true. If you wondering. Yes. Yeah. So, which I so tired. Tongue is this? Yes. Spatulate Tongue is this

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: one.

Susy: Ah, I

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: have a coated tongue. That's that. Ah. Yeah. Rolling Stones is, is tired tongue? Yes.

barbara: Wow. Say you're old. Not saying you're old.

Susy: Indeed. Boy, we should get a ding for that one.

So the yawning is often one of the first things you see, and when a dog starts yawning, I immediately start looking for, yeah, what is making them stressful? Is it the environment? Is it like what happened before? You know, the last time they came in and had a grooming, maybe wasn't as pleasant as we'd like, and maybe the dog is remembering that.

So those are really important signs. Also, I think cowering and turning away is a big one. I mean, that's. Just short of barking at you that's like, Hey, come on.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I think as groomers, there are a lot of times where we're focused on the trimming and sometimes our face is very stern looking 'cause we're focused.

Have you ever looked at your focus face?

It's not

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: really friendly. Uh, mine isn't. Not friendly.

Nope.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: And when I am doing that, sometimes dogs to calm a person down, do some very specific body language, there's the turning their head away. Which if you're trying to work on a head might feel like that dog is just fighting you and that dog's like you seem mad.

I'm gonna keep turning my head away until you calm down. And we get more and more frustrated or sitting, they start to lean back and sit and maybe kind of curl their back a little bit. And we're trying to get them even, we're trying to get them to stand and we're frustrated that they're sitting and they're sitting 'cause we're frustrated.

And it's this weird feedback loop that because we have the bigger brain and we're in charge of what happens on our grooming tables, we should step out of that loop. Help 'em calm down, then see if we can get them to stand up again.

Susy: Barbara always says it's not possible. You cannot possibly get a dog to put their head in your hand when you're doing the, like I.

And I'm like, yes, you can trust me. It just takes a little bit of time. I'm dealing with a dog right now that I inherited from a groomer who passed away. It's a couple of dogs. One of them is a three-year-old Yorkie who I know the groomer that passed away. And I know that she's a force it through kind of a groomer.

Mm-hmm. And I have been working with this dog, and I got her to put her foot in my hand and I was able to trim the nails, but I caught one. And so I had a little bit of bleeding. Now the owner worried the whole month long about me having caused pain to the dog. And she had worked it up and she came in, she said, what can we do about the nail trim?

And I said, well. We are working with a dog who has a horrible fear and she said, well try the dremmel. Guess what? I pulled the dremmel out and the dog just freaked out. So I suspect there was some aggressive drin going on, possibly with two people. 'cause it's at a bad hospital and I am starting from scratch with this little dog.

And I tried to explain that to the owner. I said, well, I'm a new person. She doesn't know my methods and how I work, so we're gonna start really slowly. And she said, well, what do we do? And I said, it's gonna take time is all and I'm gonna work with it. That's like my area of expertise. So it's very practical.

To use these techniques and to work with the dogs and to get her better by the end of the grooming experience, she would hand her foot to me, but I didn't do the nail trim because they didn't really need to be done. This time I can save them. Mm-hmm. For next time. So we just worked on positively showing her that putting her foot in her hand does not always mean that she's gonna get snagged up and dred or have her tail have her toe missed.

Last time, it had been quite a long time since she had been done, so I did work through it and as best as I could, got her nails done. But I did miss that one toe dog on it. She was fine with it, but it really messed with the owner.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: So

Susy: we.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I think that a lot of groomers don't realize that there's a fix, that there's a solution.

So if you don't know that there's a way to teach them to be good for it, you might think. But this grooming part is so important, and we do know that nail trims are important. We do know that, removing mats is important, but none of those are a medical emergency. So if it is an emergency, we should have them go to the vet for that.

Maybe this dog is at a point where they do need to be knocked out as if for surgery, shave off the, the terrible, terrible matting and just start fresh, wake up like, oh look, I got a haircut. You know, and like, and start fresh. But that doesn't mean that training isn't necessary or that it wouldn't work because it does.

And also I think a lot of groomers don't understand that, , fears don't necessarily mean that this pet was mistreated. I know humans who are terrified of blood drawing and terrified of needles. Who would love to get over that. Not like you can just talk 'em through it. Don't do that. Oh, well that makes sense now.

Like they're terrified of it and they don't know where it started and they've actively tried to work on it yet with our dogs, we're like, well, you're afraid of that. Oh, well let's hold you down and get it done 'cause it's super important. Or, you know, um, I guess he's a bad dog, but sometimes they're just terrified and we don't know why.

Susy: This dog was terrified and I definitely made a judgment only because I've been back there with her course and I've watched her through the dogs like that. But yeah, I think that we. And especially our owners will say, oh, I just got this dog from a shelter. It was abused. Okay, really? 'cause I'm not seeing a dog that was abused.

I'm just seeing one that's way down in the pack. That's not the, uh, stand at front, you know? It's just not that personality that you had with your other dog. It's not that it was abused. It's interesting. I

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I think a lot of these dogs have a lack of experience. A lot of dogs end up in shelters, not because somebody was abusive or somebody was mean, but because somebody didn't have enough time with them.

So they have been living in a crate in the basement or living in the garage. They never met children. They've never gone on leash walks. The whole world is new and freaky and like either super overstimulating exciting or maybe scary because they grew up in, in less than ideal conditions. That doesn't mean that someone was ever mean to them.

Very true.

Susy: And it also doesn't mean that. You can't get past that yourself. I've had great success using these techniques to get past and become the dog's friend. In this particular case, you just hit it on the nail. They've never been outside other than to go to the groomers at the vet every other month or whatever.

And they are indoor only they pee on pee pads. They don't have visitors. So me coming in there and wanting to do a nail trim on this dog, he, he, she was not prepared for that. And I did recognize that. And, you know, it wasn't so much struggle that I made an impression that I wasn't able to get past. Mm-hmm.

So I did manage to, I think, move forward on this last grooming. It's really encouraging. Good. And I think that we need to respect the signals and respect the dogs. Ability to tolerate stuff. And I always start with medical and probably more because you taught me, but also because I worked in a medical environment.

When somebody's struggling or not having a good time with the process, make sure there's not an injury or a potential for an injury that you have not recognized yet. And I think working with this, they're difficult Dogs that have a difficult time with the process, injuries are often a part when faced with a behavior

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: that you wanna change, first think, is there a physical reason?

Can I give an example of that? Please do. Yeah. Um, we had a dog at the one salon that. Had just hit that teenager kind of age and he had longer coat and the owners had been really good about brushing 'em and bringing him in often for brushing. And we were working on keeping this coat long 'cause that's what the owners wanted, got up toward his neck and he let out the, our first thought, and I don't know if Zoom probably edited that out, but the scream, right?

The, the ah overdramatic and our first thought was energy is

Susy: the puppets.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Right? The hand puppets are

Susy: right.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: If you're watching love, they're him puppets. But he let out a scream and it would be so easy. I've seen so many groomers do it, think, oh no, we don't let you get away with that. But our first thought was, are you okay?

This isn't normal for this dog. And you could say, oh, well he's a teenager and that's why they get like this at eight months old. You know? And, and I know so many groomers who would've, but our first thought was, is there a health problem? Why did you do that? And then went back to doing something else.

Talked to the owners. Oh yeah. The owner's like, oh, well he got hit by a car yesterday, but the vet said he was okay. Can you imagine if we had decided to say, oh no, Mr. We don't put up with that. What if we had continued to force? What if? What if we caused damage to an already sore neck? Just because we weren't thinking, is there a health reason?

Susy: And oftentimes o owners will not disclose this stuff. They don't tell us because for some reason they don't think it's important and the vet cleared the dog. So we definitely wanna tune into, uh,

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: yeah, a, a dog screaming like that. And it seems extreme, but then how many groomers have a story like that? We can say, oh, well how often does that happen?

I'm like, but yet so many groomers have a story like that. The owner who brought him in the day after a surgery or brought him in, like, what are they even thinking? And you ask anything new, anything going on? No, he's fine. Oh, everything's great. Everything's great. Yeah, no problem. You know, until we find that there's a problem.

Uh, and some of our dogs are living in chronic pain, you know, um, talking to a couple of vet techs who in our, in our Flyball club, and it's like, well, you know, some of these dogs have pain. Like, well, you guys are groomers. You're not trained for that. I'm like, do you think that dogs stop getting groomed when they have hip dysplasia?

Or stop getting groomed when they have arthritis in their feet or stop getting groomed when they lose a bunch of teeth in. Uh, you know, like, what are you thinking? And they're like, oh my God, I never ever thought about the fact that they continue to get groomed even as they age, even as they have these physical problems.

Yet groomers are also thinking that's a behavior problem, but is it, what modifications can we make to help an animal feel comfortable? Cooperative care takes two.

Susy: So what does cooperative care look like in the grooming setting? Like describe a scenario where you go start to finish in working with a dog that say, for instance, doesn't want its face done.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Okay, so for face first, I would try, try to find out if there is something actually physically wrong. And maybe there is, think about some of our little losses and zus that have like little folds and, but I'm first gonna take a look, but what if I can get that dog to be calm? Relax, calm 'em down. If you listen to my show, we talk a lot about calm, comfortable, and cooperative being a goal.

That's what we should be aiming for. Creating great

Susy: for creating great grooming dogs. Creating great grooming dogs. Creating great grooming dogs.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: There you go. , but we're, we're always trying to help them be calm, comfortable, and cooperative. So I'm gonna calm that dog down and see if I can take a closer look

See if a different tool makes a difference. See if it's my hand position. There are lots of things that we can do. A lot of dogs, if you let them relax first, we'll allow you to do it. I think we tend to think that dogs are refusing when really often they're like not ready. Or that was, that wasn't right.

Um, it didn't feel good when you did it that way. And yet if we calm them down and try again. How, how much calmness can I bring to this? Relax. Can I touch you here? Good. Can I touch you here with a comb? Good. Can I touch you in here with a scissor? Sometimes they will let you, sometimes we're so focused on grooming that we have forgotten that we do scary things with objects that they're not used to.

I, it drives me crazy when I see groomers turn dryers on and clippers on next to a dog's face. I watched that. Most dogs are gonna jump and we're like, why do they jump? Like why? I would jump if you just turned it on next to my face. No warning. I watched a video

Susy: that accidentally came across my feed that was a guy with a dog, I think it was a guy, I don't remember for sure.

He was trying to shave underneath the eyes with the clippers and the dog was just wigging out and he kept going back in with the clippers and I thought, try your scissors, dude. I'm sure it'll be a little less aggressive

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: and, and reset. Calm the dog down again. Reset. Just, okay, maybe I took that too far.

Can I calm you down again? Can we calm down? Can we try it a different way? Can we try it from a different angle? Can we find out if maybe mommy and daddy are doing stuff at home? Often the owners are creating some of these, these issues that we're seeing.

Susy: Is there a physical reason? Well, well, those eye boogies out.

I'm cleaning those eye boogies out every day. I just hang onto the dog's chin and I clean those eye buggies out. Okay.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I ask owners, I'm like, okay. I'm, I started saying I used to. Ask owners what they're doing. And now I, I ask them what problem they're having or I tell them the problem I'm seeing and I say, I'm gonna guess at what you're doing at home.

And when I tell them, I'm guessing you close his mouth and you put your hand down over his nose and you hold it tight. And they're like, yep. I'm like, so you're choking him out? And they're like, no. Like, yeah, you're closing his mouth and pressing on his nose so he can't breathe. And you're like, it doesn't hurt while you grind downward.

And they're like, yes. I'm like, Hmm. Grinding downward, scraping that sensitive skin around the corner of his eye that's already irritated with your fingernail. And they're like, oh my God. So sometimes they have a fear because of handling that they're getting on a regular basis. Sometimes they have a fear because it's really sore.

Sometimes they have a fear because our tool is weird. A lot of unusual tools that we use, but all of those things, if we can think about what this pet is going through and try to make this experience pleasant for them, I want you to always think, what if the dog was leaving the review? I.

Susy: We were talking about that a few weeks ago.

Yeah. Sometimes they lie.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I know, right? I think most of the dogs I groom would be like, all right, well she gets, because I'm house call, she comes in, we play a little bit, and before she leaves, we play a little bit and then all the in between is like, oh my God, why do I need to do this? For sure. You know?

Yep. What we do is tedious and it takes a long time, and as a dog trainer and a behavior consultant, I feel I am trying to teach dog trainers because they are not well equipped to teach stuff for grooming. They think teaching a 10 minute blood draw is like, wow, look how long the endurance was, and I'm like, that is nothing.

Nothing. So trying to help them understand nothing. Oh, 10 minutes. Wow. You know? Woo. So Woo. So when I talk to dog trainers, I'm trying to help them understand that what we are doing and if we think about dog grooming as the very, very elaborate stand stay. Yeah. So we have 'em stand, stay, and we, we choose to let them sit and we choose to let 'em move around.

But stand, stay on a table. So something raised or in a tub, which is also raised. So we stay and stay. We have loads of stuffing things and equipment, a distracting environment, a person they might not know. And an endurance run of average, I'd say about two hours. And trainers are like, that's madness. How would you do that?

And I'm like, you guys should know how to do that. So groomers get frustrated thinking Dog training has nothing to offer us, but it does. And as someone who does both grooming and training, I kind of fell in love with both at the same time, a long time ago. We have a lot of training stuff we can do, but some of it is just recognizing if they're stressed and not continuing.

Give 'em a break. Yeah, give 'em a break back off. Go back to something they were comfortable with. There's lots to work on. Do you need to do the head in one head swoop it's head time? I don't think we do. You know, it's nice when we can. It's nice when we can go with the flow and just do our, our system, you know the the same thing over and over and over again.

Dogs like to know what to expect, but some of our dogs aren't well versed in this. They're a little bit scared and circle back. You have that dog for two hours. Do you need to do the entire head in one fell swoop in one five minute segment or can you do some of the head in the beginning and do some of it in the tub and do a little bit more when they get out of the tub and do a little bit before they're dried and do a little bit after they're dried and just.

We tend to force it and we aren't realizing we're forcing it.

Susy: So it's okay to break it up into little pieces like that. It's best, yeah. One of the cool things the dog learns, I've said Cool a lot. Apparently. I'm very cool today. One of the nice things that, yes, the cool kids. One of the nice wicked cool things.

Wicked. Wicked, cool. Wicked, wicked cool. New England, one of the cool. Yes. One of the wicked cool things that the dogs learn when you recognize their signals to you and then you back off and give them a break, is that they are a participant in the activity. Not that they can say, no, don't do this, but they can say, Hey, can you just wait a minute till I'm ready?

Sometimes they're just not quite ready.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: And if you're good at watching for those signs, you might find that they can only handle a certain amount of time. It might have nothing to do with the tool. It might be the amount of time we've asked them to do. And if you do notice that they can only handle two minutes, then work on that spot for less than two minutes.

Don't bring them to the breaking point where they ask for a break, pause before that point, move on something else and come back. Set them up for success.

Susy: Setting them up for success is so important, and the ability for them to know that they actually have an abil, a way to stop you if something is just too much and that you'll respect that it's worth its weight in gold, for heaven's sakes.

It's amazing. So I think a lot of

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: groomers, oh. Go ahead. Go ahead. I think a lot of groomers don't know that that dog, that that did an air snap at you didn't miss. That's a dramatic big, big version of, oh my God, I need a break. You need to stop. I would hate to have to hurt you. Most of these dogs are not actually trying to injure us.

If they do a fast snap and they grab your arm and leave no marks, that was a tremendous amount of self-control. And I think we tend to be all willy-nilly with our fingers. Like, oh, he missed, he didn't miss if they aren't doing damages 'cause they are trying to communicate to you, you've done too much.

You're, you're pushing all of my buttons. I'd hate to have to hurt you. Any dog of any size can make themselves totally untouchable. And if you think, oh, I'll just put a muzzle on, they can prevent you from putting a muzzle on. Any dog of any size. Yeah. Vet techs. We, we know that. I used to be a vet tech too.

Like absolutely. If you've seen a dog in full blown panic because they're injured and they're panicking, that's usually when you would see it. They can totally be like trying to trap a, a rabid raccoon

Susy: and don't go from a nervous dog on the face to then straight to the nails or something like that.

Because stacking can happen. You can end up like stacking stressors on top of stressors and make it a gazillion times worse.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Yep. Which is called trigger stacking. All those little triggers, I find, people. Understand it better if I say, imagine we have a glass and we like one challenge, let's say touching their feet, puts a little bit of water in the glass, and then touching their feet again with the dryer, puts more water in the glass, and then we reach for their foot to do a nail trim and that puts more water in the glass.

There's only so much water that can fit in the glass before it spills over. And that's an example of trigger stacking, like, okay, maybe each of those challenges alone wouldn't have been much, but grooming is an A challenged endurance run. We can break those up or we can start booking differently. I have a couple of dogs that, you know, when we're first getting used to grooming, if nail trimming is the hard part, we might book a different appointment for nail trimming.

Just so they're not being defensive with every foot touch during grooming. There are lots of ways we can break things up, but part of that is recognizing all of those triggers all at once. Eventually spill over and people are like, wow, what happened? I guess he doesn't like having his nails trimmed.

Susy: Yeah, forcing through that is not a win.

No, it's not going to help you in the long run. It's just gonna make an adversarial relationship and our buttons get pushed with dogs that do that. We take it so personally, like Barbara says, quit taking it personally. We take it personally. This dog is fighting me when you don't realize that his teeth are falling out and are covered with tartar and you're putting your hand right in that spot when you're trying to hold the dog.

Stuff like that. I think that it's so amazing to be able to. Learn the communication that they're trying to send our way, pick up on it, honor it, and turn it into something pleasant.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: And some of the stuff that I see in our grooming industry. 'cause I have a background where I went to four years of animal science at an agricultural high school and actually took like anatomy and physiology classes.

I'm seeing groomers doing stuff that I'm, I wish more groomers knew how dogs' bodies move. Oh yeah. Of course. He has to wiggle. You have moved his leg in a way, his leg doesn't bend you. You're asking him to hold his left leg out forward and not be bent at the elbow. He has to sit and he has to torque his back.

And when he sits, he leans back because that's how you sit. And they're like, he's pulling against me. I'm like, you, you need to learn how to work around a dog's body. And yet what we find, because grooming is an industry where we kind of get mentored by somebody else, it's like run like a medieval guild.

And if that, that'd be fine if we were making candles like we did in the 15 hundreds. But there are people who are fully indoctrinated into methods and, and, and information that was outdated before they were born. If you're in your early twenties, you probably are using stuff from the 19 hundreds that we have known is, is not effective, which is crazy to me.

So some of the fighting we're seeing is dogs that just can't bend that way. Or people moving toenails up to like torquing feet so that they can see the nail better. Like, no, you bend, not the dog, you can bend. I'm in my fifties, I can bend.

Susy: That was a big challenge with where my table is because I cannot access three sides of my table.

It's a big enough table though, so I can kind of turn the dogs and get the into a comfortable position. But as I'm getting older and my hands are less flexible, I was kind of putting them in an awkward position and I realized it a little while ago when I was getting some fighting or pushback from some of the dogs.

And I've adjusted the way I am standing. I've adjusted the height of the table, I've adjusted the orientation of the dogs, and now everybody's happy again. Nice. Gotta watch for stuff like that.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: It's a great reason to vi video yourself. You know? Definitely. Even if you're not sharing it, video yourself and you're like, Ooh, that was a weird angle.

My biggest thing now, when I watch videos of myself, I'm like, I have my table of house call I and my table down low because it's easier on my shoulder, but ergonomically it's terrible for my back. So I'm like, do I need to raise that table? But it's, it's, it's a house call table. It's not like it can just raise it and lower it.

It's set to one height and you start noticing those things though, you notice, am I asking this dog to be in a weird position? And sometimes you have to work around the dog. I think we should be teaching more of these dogs to lie down for some of these things. The show world does it, and if you have a little, okay, I'm gonna throw Shi zus under the bus, but you know, like the, the, a dog with really twisted front legs.

What do we know about them? We know as they get older, their joints are gonna be sore. Just teach that dog to lie down for nails. You would be amazed at how different they are if they aren't in an uncomfortable position while you trim nails. It's about adding that kindness. When we, I mean, put the care in pet care, we are trying to help these dogs feel more comfortable with it so that we can do it for their whole life

Susy: and it makes it easier to do our job.

It's like getting a raise if you don't have to stress out and fight with a dog. There are the, there is the occasional dog that does love to wrestle. You gotta kind of know the owner, like old people. Dogs, I think old people, dogs really like the physicality of a little wrestling sometimes. I take your cue though and do it before or after the groom.

Not during the groom.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I know. And sometimes that's a great reward for them. They're like, oh wait a minute. 'cause their owners don't kneel on the floor like I do. You know, some of I was. Take him

Susy: for a walk. What? Yeah. My God. You can get down to my size and we go for a walk.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I worked with one little terrier that, , he had never really played tug and I could play tug.

I, I like rough hausen with dogs and I would crank it up to crazy land for him and he was like, this has never happened. And it, it's, it's an outlet. It's something that he actually needs that he wasn't getting. But also, what if the difference between the weird stranger doing all these things on my body that I'm nervous about, or my new weird friend doing all these things on my body that I'm nervous about?

It's a huge difference. Our toy breeds, we know toy breeds are like, I love my people, not everybody else. My job, like my people

don't like those other people.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: So become their friend. You know the terriers? Yeah. If you're, if you're not their friend, they might be like, oh, who are you? The, the herding dogs? I have border colies.

If they don't know you, they're like, who are you? You don't get to make decisions for me because they're decision makers. It's what we bred them to do. Go off and make decisions all day on their own. So if you think you're just gonna go in and say, oh, well I'm gonna do this. A lot of border crawlies are like, yeah, prove it.

I don't think you're fast enough. And, and that's why groomers sometimes look at me and go Really border crawlies. I'm like, my dogs are good for grooming. But part of that is are they comfortable with the person? Are they comfortable with the procedures? And if they are uncomfortable, are we willing to listen?

We have to be willing to listen. I think people think it's new agey, granola, crunchy, but did you know, well, Suzy knows, but let's throw it out there for the people out there. Did you know that you could set it up so that every dog that you groom is good for grooming? Or actively learning to be good for grooming.

Wait, I was gonna use a ding, but I lost my ding. How? Well,

Susy: there should been a ding there, but I was on the wrong page.

So I really love everything you teach. I mean, I just have, have been so enlightened in the grooming behavior, crossover world. I think it's great and I think we can have so much effect on these animals. Grooming is not really always the thing they wanna do. That day when we show up, we show up and they're like, ah, there's Susie.

Oh crap, there's Susie. Like two seconds. You watch the change on their face and it's like, um, they're so disappointing. But then I. When it's over and they love you and they're so clean and they're happy and they're showing their humans, it just makes it so much better when there's no stress in the middle like you're talking about.

'cause there does not have to be any stress. There does not have to be, I don't have stress with any of my dogs. The dogs that started out difficult, they're no longer difficult for me. I worry if they went to someone else because they might not listen to them. But for me, they have a say. They have a pleasant experience.

I have a pleasant experience. We have a pleasant experience together. I mean, it really is the best job in the world. I'm so grateful to do what I do and,

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: and I think a lot of groomers don't realize that it's the behavior problems that they don't understand how to work on that, burn them out. That's where your burnout's coming from.

It's not from the dogs who are like la, la, la Doom a grooming, right? It, it's the dogs that are the wild card. I don't know how long it's gonna take. I don't know what he's gonna do. I can't make him look perfect. I need another person over here. Add another strap. Um, that, those are the, those are the dogs that really frustrate us, that our customers are upset because maybe we haven't communicated well that behavior problems or safety problems.

And, all right, I'm gonna promote my show. But if you go to Creating Great Grooming Dogs.com, I have it on a blog post. It's, well, first of all, it's listed an awful lot, but there's a safety policy that you can start using with your own owners. It's not a contract, but it basically says, we use sharp tools and we need to keep your pets safe.

And if there is a behavior problem, we're gonna slow down, help 'em be comfortable, and work toward a pleasant experience for the future. And we're gonna charge you our hourly rate. Piece, don't do it for free. That piece

Susy: of paper. Yeah, that piece of paper opens a dialogue. I think that's the most important thing.

It does.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: It does. Because then owners say sharp things you would not believe. How many owners have no idea that we're using sharp tools. Other animal professionals, they're like, why would you use something sharp? Can't you use safety scissors or the ball tip shears? I'm like, you can stab somebody with a ball tip shear.

If I come at you with that, really, you know, it's still slices. Anything that cuts hair can cut a dog and if they don't know that they're not aware of the safety issues that we know, but often we're trying to push through to make a perfect trim, and I mentioned before, if you're in your early twenties, so in the late nineties I left a job because they wanted me to make it perfect no matter what.

Susy: Well, I couldn't have even done that ever.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Right? Like, alright. And you got him used to it. And that was good. And we loved that. And that was really, really sweet. But also, he can't go home looking like that. So in the last minute, all of the work I had done would be undone by forcing him through something at the last minute.

And I still see groomers doing it, and I'm like, that's the 1900's. That's not current. That hasn't been current this century. We can do better there. There is new stuff to learn. Join us. The water's nice, you know that there's new stuff to learn. We, we need to really prioritize these pets because if we groom them for 15 years.

15 years. So right now, what are we at? June 29th. 2025. Dogs being born right now. We might be grooming them until 2040.

Susy: I'd like to think that I keep my dogs, so, yeah, absolutely. 2040.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: 15 years. Are you gonna fight with that dog every grooming for 15 years, or are you gonna spend the first couple of grooming sessions making sure that they learn how to be good for it, whether they're five years old now or not.

Right. A five year, five-year-old dog can still learn. That's one of the big myths out there. It's like, he should have learned this when he was a puppy. We can still teach them stuff.

Susy: We do it a lot. Absolutely. Yeah. People do have a kind of predisposed notion that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. As a matter of fact, there used to be a saying that was thrown around quite often.

Used to be, yeah.

Susy: To that effect. But the truth is. When you adopt a dog or when you start with a new dog in your grooming business, you're starting a relationship right then and there. And even though there may be some baggage, there may be genetics involved, there may be painful issues, but you're getting a basically clean slate to start your relationship with that dog.

At that moment. We can start teaching how we do things and how they have the opportunity to have an effect on the end result right then and there. Just start from day one. It doesn't matter the age of the dog or the horse or the lion.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Um, the other side of that though is that if we see puppies. There is a critical phase that's beautiful where they are primed for learning.

And if we can teach them at that very early age, sweetie, everything's gonna be fine. But what I keep seeing is, oh, well, we do a puppy grooming, which is, it's only the bath, the drying, the sandy, the nails, the pads, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, that's a lot to ask of a puppy. We have this opportunity when they're very young, to make sure that we're keeping them in their safe zone, in their comfort zone, and that everything they're exposed to is like, okay, there.

Temple Grandin talks about fear and seeking two responses to something new. Am I afraid or am I interested? And some of these dogs, it's just their character to be like, oh, cautious of something new. I'm cautious. Don't push them. And yet so often, that's actually what we're doing when they're puppies. Well, he is gotta learn.

I'm like, oh my God. Oh. Stop. Stop. Please make it pleasant when they're little, because Mother Nature is telling them all the things that happen when you're young or things that are gonna be in your life forever, and we have the opportunity to maybe make it so that they never even thought to be nervous about a dryer.

Susy: Yes. That's totally the goal. You want them to love you, to love the experience, to not go put themselves in their crate when you show up at the house. Yeah. Yeah. You want 'em to come back to you when you let 'em go after you're done. You want a relationship and a positive relationship. You wanna be, for me, I wanna be the person the dog looks to when their owner isn't there.

I want them to go, what do I do? Or is that scary? I want that to be me. But to do that, you've gotta have some relationships, some time spent with the dog and some positive experiences, including what they're doing on your grooming table.

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: Yeah,

Susy: and the pleasant

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: experience. Like I said, I've been trying to change the wording, pleasant experience, you know, like what if, what if we make it so that, this has always been okay.

I am really, really ticklish the idea of someone doing a pedicure. I've had a pedicure and I had to keep stopping or like, oh my God, I, hold on, hold on. I'm really ticklish. And I had to keep stopping and she was really patient with me. 'cause I told her ahead of time, I'm like, I am really, really ticklish.

I think about something that you're uncomfortable with and maybe you don't even know why. Maybe there's some fear of snakes. The people who are afraid of snakes, how, how many of them have actually been injured by a snake? Is it about being injured or is it about a fear? And you don't even necessarily know why, but you want someone to hold you down and keep putting snakes on you until you figure it out.

That seems mean. It's not

Susy: kind. It's, it's funny because we tend to forget. The individual part of the dog, or in my case, the horse. Like for instance, my husband desperately wanted to do what he sees on YouTube all the time, which is go up and give Maisie a big hug around her neck. Maisie is my horse.

Mm-hmm. Maisie is a lot like me. We're not huggers. She doesn't want to hug on her neck. She doesn't wanna cuddle on her face. She wants a pet back by her withers or a gentle stroke on her neck. That's okay if she says Go for it. She's very much a touch My nose, horse, she puts her nose in your hand. She'll put her nose on your body.

She wants to initiate it. And because of your teaching, I recognized that early and I was explain, I was able to explain to my husband, who doesn't like to be hugged by people he doesn't know either that that's the way she is. And you need to respect that. Just like you want people to respect not running in and giving you a hug when they haven't seen you for six months.

So yeah, there's so much to learn that I have applied into my everyday life from my Master Groomer behavior specialist program and my focus on dogs that have a difficult time with the process. And you, Chrissy Nemeyer Smith, we're gonna wrap this show up, but I will promise you all who are listening that we will be doing this again and again and again and again until I'm not doing it anymore because I just love spending time with you.

So we have a lot of fun. Yes. Uh, the way we. Exit the show as we just say Goodbye and happy grooming and see you next time on The Groom Pod. How do you usually exit the show?

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: I usually remind everybody that I teach programs through The Whole Pet Grooming Academy, the Master Groomer Behavior Specialist Program for experienced groomers who wanna learn the behavior side and have a great week.

Susy: Bye-bye

Chrissy Neumyer Smith: everybody.