When you are a pet groomer, you might face a number of challenges while trying to engage with the animal that you have to groom. Professional pet grooming involves a lot of careful consideration as to how comfortable the pet is with you. It is important that you learn their requirements from their pet parents before you do the pet grooming, especially when it comes to hair trimming. While being a professional pet groomer means that you already would have to know how to handle pets in general, it is vital for the pet groomer and the pet parent to at least briefly discuss the temperament of their pet. This not only helps in gauging how much help you must be needing, but will also help in gauging if you have to bring in any special equipment for comfort. Some pets might experience anxiety in the presence of a stranger, especially someone who will be touching them intimately. Some other pets might experience anxiety due to the noises made by the equipment. When these happen to be dogs that are big in size, their handling might have to be done slightly differently as their size should be taken into account. Here are three ways in which your big dog might benefit in terms of calming down during pet grooming sessions –
Noise canceling headphones or ear muffs – A lot of dogs benefit from this largely due to the fact that they let them be calm without having to hear the background noises or even the noises of the equipment. Sometimes, sudden noises may occur in your neighborhood while your at-home dog groomer is at work and your dog might get startled enough and make sudden movements that might result in injuries for both the pet groomer and the dog. To avoid this, since big dogs are particularly hard to handle physically if they get startled suddenly, investing in good quality ear muffs or noise canceling headphones would be a great addition to the grooming sessions and will certainly help in calming the pet down,
Leash or muzzle – This can be an option after the consent is taken from the pet parent. Some dogs might not naturally be able to control their aggressive tendencies especially when a stranger is involved and if it is a big dog, subduing them physically might prove to be a significant challenge as a pet groomer. Therefore, making use of muzzles only during the times that they might end up biting or injuring you might make the pet grooming session go on more smoothly.
Encourage calm behavior – This will mostly require the assistance of the pet parent. Not only is it advisable for them to make sure that their dog is trained enough to display calm behavior in most scenarios, it is important that the dog is encouraged to do so during pet grooming sessions. This means that when they display the desired set of behaviors, they either need to be verbally affirmed or positively reinforced in some other way so they are constantly motivated to display good behavior. As a professional pet groomer, you can also learn some tricks that might help in befriending a new dog and use them during your sessions. You need to have a calmer body language and should not assert violence incase of misbehavior from the pets. Encouraging calm behavior as opposed to punishing them for bad behavior lets the pet know that they are expected to behave in a certain way and in doing so they will make the humans around them happy (or that they will get a treat or something else positive out of it). This is generally considered to be the most effective way.
