CMG Melissa Verplank has some crucial advice for saving time this holiday season! Find out how you and your grooming team can speed things up by skipping the pre-groom and letting your dryer do the work.
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So one of my rules of thumb is never pre-trim a dog before it goes to the tub if water can penetrate that coat. And that would also go for your bathroom brush type dogs as well. I don’t want to pre-brush that dog out before it’s cleaned, before it’s dry. And with today, there are so many products and tools that we can use to make that coat do what we really want it to do and to do it very efficiently. But you know, every once in a while I still run into folks that are pre-clipping and pre-brushing those dogs before they hit the tub. And my big question is why? Why would you do that? So again, my general rule of thumb is if water can penetrate the coat, definitely get it to the tub first.
Now if you are looking at a dog that’s got rock solid mats and water just can’t penetrate those mats, then yeah you’ve got to pre-clip that dog before you bathe it. But for most of your regular customers that are coming in every four to six weeks, shoot, get them right to the tub. And even if the dog has got some mats and tangles in the coat, again, if water can penetrate it, get it to the tub. Because let’s stop and think about it. When you have a ring on your finger and it’s so tight that you can’t get it off … this one’s really stuck. How do you get it off? With soap and water, right? You make it slippery.
Well, mats and tangles and that type of thing are going to work the same way when you get that coat clean and you apply the shampoo. And a lot of times once that coat is clean, it’s the dirt and the debris and the gunk that’s in that coat that are holding those mats and tangles kind of together. So once you get the coat clean, then your brushes and your high velocity dryers, especially your high velocity dryers, can do a lot of the work for you. And they’ll literally move that dead coat, those mats, those tangles away from the skin so that when you do go in with a brush, you can literally just pat and gently pull, pat and gently pull. And you’re not going to be scraping against the skin at any point. And it’s a very gentle, methodical process.
The other thing you can do for a dog that is possibly in really tough shape is bathe them. And before you rinse out your second shampoo, take a high velocity dryer right to the tub. And a lot of times when that coat is clean and it’s slippery and it’s got the shampoo in it, just like a ring will come off your finger a lot easier when the shampoo is there or the soap is there, the high velocity dryer will literally just blow those mats and tangles right out of that coat. So really think about how you can use your tools and your products to efficiently get the job done. And I mean, come on. Who wants to work on a gross, nasty, dirty, icky dog? Isn’t it a whole lot better to be working on a dog that’s clean and that smells good and feels good?
And yeah, sure there’s times that you do have to pre-clip. If you haven’t seen that dog in eight weeks or more, more than likely it’s going to be more efficient to do a really fast pre-clip before the dog hits the tub. But again, for those regular clients, shoot, just get them right to the tub. And for a lot of those dogs, I have even seen stylists do this very, very effectively. And I had never even seen it done until I watched Sue Watson and Lisa Leady bathing dogs. And if you’re working with pre-diluted shampoo, heck, they’re not even wetting a dog down. They’re just applying the solution to the dog’s coat and starting that way.
And again, just every little bit saves time and it saves on product, yet it’s going to yield a really quality result. So think about how you’re bathing these dogs when they hit the tub. And if you can bypass a step and not bypass quality, by all means, go for it. Give it a try. Try it maybe just before the … if you’re not used to it, try it just a little bit before the last couple of days of the holiday really sink in, but give it a shot. I bet you’re going to be surprised.