07/24/2023
Timing
Anyone who has played whack-a-mole at the arcade knows the importance of timing. If you are not getting to the mole at the exact right time, you don't get the points. It's a skill needed to win the game and even more so to train the dogs in the grooming salon.
Before we can begin that training though, there are things we have to understand about the dogs in our care. They do not know. They do not know the importance of standing up and standing still. They do not know how to stand on a table. They do not know what a dryer is or a clipper, some not even a brush or comb. They do not know they can be injured.
Yet, while we would never expect to take a 2 year old dog that has never been walked or out of the back yard and have them do a perfect heel, we often expect dogs to know grooming.
How many of us have taken our own dogs through an obedience course? Most of the basic courses are going to teach a dog how to respect and respond to leash pressure, focus on the handler, sit, stand for exam, down, stay and most importantly, do all this with distractions. Courses usually run 6 - 8 weeks. That is 6 - 8 hours of solid training in class with several hours of work at home. We would never expect to teach all of that in a single one hour session. That would be absurd, yet, what are we expecting from the dogs that come into our salons?
A dog that does't understand or fights leash pressure, will not understand being restrained on the table.
A dog that has not been taught to focus, will not hold still and wait for your guidance.
A dog that has not been taught to stand, well, will not.
A dog that has never worked around distractions is probably not going to easily walk through a busy salon back to the kennel area.
A dog that has never been kennel trained will probably not be settled and relaxed waiting his turn.
Let's not forget the feel and sound of dryers, high pressure shampoo systems, the vibration of clippers, handling by a stranger and all the other things that dogs do not normally encounter in their day to day lives.
So how do we accomplish the most training in the least amount of time? Patience, realistic expectations, a bit of flexibility and really good timing.
If you expect every dog that comes in to just magically know to stand up, stand still, allow you to handle every body part with not a smidgen of resistance and then to relax quietly in a kennel until you are ready for them, you are setting yourself and them up to fail. You are adding undo stress to what is already a stressful situation.
Start slow, give some leeway for mistakes and make sure you have your timing for corrections and praise down pat.
Letting a dog jump up on the edge of the tub or up on your shoulder THEN telling them "off" is not going to get your point across nearly as well as stopping them BEFORE they get their feet on the edge or on your shoulders. Allowing a dog to fully sit before standing them back up is not going to work nearly as well as an "Eh eh stand" right as they begin to bend the legs to sit and a "good dog" once the legs are back underneath them. By allowing them to accomplish the jumping or the sitting, they have accomplished their goal. Even if they only sat for a few seconds or a minute, they sat. They did what they intended to do. They may eventually learn the command of stand, to then do as asked, but they won't as easily learn not to sit. Instead it can be a back and forth of sit/stand sit/stand.
A dog that has been barking in the kennel for minutes or hours is not going to have any idea what you are yelling about when you go back to tell them to shut it. For one, the word is likely foreign to them. You may as well tell and expect them to do a calculus problem. They will also have no idea what behavior you are finding offensive. For a dog, barking is normal, not bad, so why would it upset you?
Can you imagine what might go through their minds? There is some crazy person that just keeps coming back here yelling or throwing things or squirting with water for no reason. We then want them to trust and respect us as we ask them to allow us to touch and handle every part of them?
Rewarding and encouraging the quiet takes a bit of time, but gives much more reliable results. Rather than telling them what not to do, which most have no idea what exact thing that is anyway, rewarding and encouraging quiet tells them what you DO want. For everything we want extinguished, we have to let them know what to do instead.
When we are unpredictable and unclear with the dogs in our salons, they surely do not learn to trust us. Survival is avoiding the unpredictable, which can mean avoiding our touch, our guidance to where we want them on the table, avoiding our equipment and our attention.
We also need patience and realistic expectations. We cannot train a dog to a CD is just a couple hours. It takes time, practice, patience and work. Sometimes we have to explain to our clients the same thing. Not only do we need to keep our expectations realistic for that particular dog, but we have to convey that to the owner as well. Unfortunately, that can be harder than teaching the dog, but for myself, if an owner won't listen or understand, I don't want them as a client. There are groomers out there that will hold a dog down and force it to be done. Do I want them working on another dog? No, but that is not my choice or under my control. I can only control what I do and how I feel at the end of the day.
Most importantly we need empathy and understand for the dogs in our care. We always have to remember that they don't know what they don't know. Go slow, take your time, introduce new commands, new sensations, new tools at a pace that will work for the dog on your table. Fighting them, getting frustrated with them ( or their owners) will get us nowhere. It is our responsibility to teach them, train them, show them what we want and guide them into becoming the best grooming dog they can be and it will rarely be done in a one hour grooming session.
