Monday, March 8, 2010

Day 6

I was soooo tired and slightly aggrivated this morning - tired because I have to get up at 6am to shower & get ready to take Ryan into work at 7:30am and aggrivated for who knows what reason, LOL....probably a cat made me the slightest bit mad.

I tried to remember that you can't handle dogs when you are grumpy, so I pushed my grumpiness aside and headed into the shop to start day 6!

Once I got to the shop I played with a little old (I think she was 16 or so) Yorkie, who was as tiny and as sweet as can be. The "shop Poodle" was also there this morning, her name is Pearl and she's pretty much made me love Standard Poodles who are white in color. After visiting with the doggies and waiting for my first task, I started off watching one of my instructors bathe a dog. I guess my dogs aren't coming out as shiney as they'd like them to be, so I need to work on figuring out the correct amount of conditioner I should be using depending on the size of the dog and the hair texture. They said once I start grooming/finishing dogs then I will see the difference in a really soft coat versus a coat that is still a bit harsh. Bathing a dog is a bit more difficult then you'd think it would be, let me tell ya!

My first dog to wash was "Buddy" - he comes in every Monday for a bath in oatmeal shampoo because his owner's little son is allergic to him, so he needs a bath/blow out/good brushing weekly. I think its great that the family spends the money to do that instead of just getting rid of their 2 doggies. Anyway, I really like Buddy...he is very calm and doesn't mind getting washed/blow out at all. Shoot, he should be used to it by now....weekly baths! LOL

My next dog was a longer haired dog - I don't know what breed it was, some sort of mix, but I do know I need to find some AKC dog shows to watch online so that I can study my breeds better because I have a hard time figuring out what some of the little fluffy dogs are. So after I learned how to bathe a long haired dog so that it's fur wouldn't tangle....I then got a lesson on how to blow that type of dog out. It is soooo tricky and I can tell it is going to take a lot of practice. The HV (high velocity - force dryer) is super powerful, so you have to hold the nozzle at a certain distance so that you don't cause the long hair to whip around and tangle up. You have to sort of "dive in" with the nozzle, then pull away super fast in a circular motion to stop the whipping/knotting of the hair. I guess the best way to put it visually is that the hair forms tornados if you aren't careful!

A little Yorkie named "Brody" was waiting for a bath next, so I bathed/blew him out and then took him up front to be fluff dried with the stand dryer - you have to get the longer hair straight with a slicker brush before it dries completely. Brody was a good little boy and let me get him all straightened/fluffed without any fighting.

After my little snack/lunch break I got Pearl (the Std. Poodle) up on my table and started to brush her out with my slicker. As a Poodle's hair grows out it grows "twisty", so you have to line brush the hair - which means you have to separate the hair brush section by section (hard to explain in typing). I got as far as one front leg and half of the other front leg and then it was time for me to go and pick Ryan up (having only 1 car sucks so bad).

So today was a calm/relaxed day at the shop. It doesn't seem as busy on Mondays because only my 2 instructors and myself are there....its the other days when everyone is there is when its more "rushed".

Ohhhhh....I have to order a new pair of clippers tonight. A lady from the midwest was really nice and send me some clippers, snap-on combs, blades, slickers, and a comb all for free (I met her on the pet grooming forums)...but the clippers she sent me are a bit older and aren't going to work for me. So, I have to order a new pair tonight, which stinks because that's $150 more that I need to spend when we really don't have a lot of money right now because I had to quit my job in order to go to school. I mean, we have some money in savings, but it stinks having to spend so much after I just spent $1k up front to start school (need another $2.5k for later) and I spend about $700 on my tool kit. Oh well....if I need it then I need it!

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