Quality pet and show grooming from a Nationally Certified Master Groomer with 20+ years experience.
02/25/2025
If you spend much time watching videos on social media, you have probably seen a trend going around of groomers singing along to a song while blow drying dogs and then videoing the dog seemingly ‘singing along’ by attacking the air from the blow dryer. These videos might seem funny and harmless, like the dogs are enjoying participating in this activity, but promoting this behavior has other unseen consequences.
Grooming should be as stress free as possible on the dogs in our care and for the groomers handling them. Many dogs dislike loud noises, like dryers and vacuums, and when they haven’t been trained and desensitized to accept it and are scared of it they have two choices, they can fight it or run from it. When they can’t escape the threat, such as when they are restrained on a table or in a tub, their only other option is to fight and they do this by biting, barking and lunging at this perceived threat to their safety.
Allowing this is reinforcing the unwanted behavior leading to a dog that ultimately starts the barking and lunging and biting as soon as they see the dryer, making grooming mentally harder on them and any groomer who tries to work with them in the future, or even their owner if they try and dry them at home.
There are many ways we can make the drying process easier on the dogs, and therefore keep them calmer, and true professionals will choose these options long before setting up their phones to take a video of them deliberately antagonizing and stressing out the dogs they are trusted to care for just for social media clicks.
You don’t see dentists or doctors making videos of their patients who have anxiety making light of the situation just for laughs, so why is it ok to do it to our pets?
Groomers, do better by your clients, and pet owners, expect professionalism from your groomers.
