Dog Grooming Steps for Dummies

Dog grooming steps for dummies. You're not a dummy and that's why you're watching this video. This is the ultimate dog grooming for beginners guide to successful dog grooming sessions. Whether you're grooming a poodle, a yorkie, a shih tzu, or a mixed breed dog, these grooming steps apply to any dog that requires a haircut. As a professional pet groomer with decades of experience, I've learned very quickly that successful dog grooming sessions require a specific set of procedures to follow with every dog I groom. I've trained many beginners in my salon over the years and today in this video I'm training you. Whether you're new to pet grooming or you want to learn proper dog grooming in order to groom your pets at home, this video was made for you and the pets you groom. My idea for this video is to simplify this for you guys so we're going to be using minimal tools to groom Louie today. There are not a lot of options available to you that will set you up for successful dog grooming sessions, especially if you're not attending a reputable dog grooming school and paying a pricey tuition. Your only option to learn is through purchasing books like these. Don't get me wrong, these books are great references to have if you're learning to groom dogs, but they will not help you if you have very little dog grooming knowledge to begin with. I link these books for you in the description below if you want to pick one to refer to, especially if you're grooming a purebred dog in a breed standard trim. I suggest notes from the grooming table. Anyone learning to groom dogs should have that book. I also have a GoGroomer Learning Center with many free and paid learning options for the very beginner dog groomer. I link that for you below as well. Now let's get to it my friends. There are 11 steps to learn in dog grooming and the first step is a thorough brush out before you bathe the dog. This is Louie, he's a Maltese. I start at the head and I gently brush every ounce of the dog, muzzle, ears, everything from the head to the toes to the tail. Give him a good brush out because this is going to ensure that you'll be able to properly cleanse him in your shampoo process and when we get to the conditioning, that's going to set our whole groom up for success. Keep in mind in this video, I'm walking you through the specific dog grooming steps you should follow regardless of the dog breed you are working with. If you're grooming a Golden Retriever which doesn't require a haircut, simply skip the clipper work step and move on to the next one. A slicker brush is the best type of brush to use for any dog that requires a haircut. In this video, I am using the Artero Flexible Slicker Brush. Ear plucking is the next step before we bathe the dog. I am using a hemostat to gently remove only a couple strands of hair at a time that grow inside the ear only. If you're a beginner, you may not want to use a hemostat. You could bump something down in there and hurt the dog, so just use your fingers. You could also use these finger rubbers to grip the hair. I'll link them for you below. Not all dog breeds require the hair to be plucked from the ears. It's only necessary if there's an excessive amount of hair. Now we're moving on to the bathing steps. As a professional, I use a bathing system to assist me in this process, but I can suggest to you to use these nice bathing loofahs that we use for us when we bathe on your dog to help produce the perfect amount of lather while you're shampooing your dog. I will link all the products that I'm using and suggesting to you in this video. So you can save this video in your favorites playlist because you're going to be referring to it often. Hold the ears against your dog's head so that you avoid getting water in the ears and we will be saving the head for last because that's when your dog is going to shake a lot. Wash every ounce of your dog, I mean everywhere, in the paw pads, underneath, around the bum, everywhere. Get a good lather and we're going to let this sit on your dog for about three minutes before rinsing, giving the shampoo time to clean your dog. We're using a gentle face wash for the head. I want you to completely wet your dog's face. Apply maybe a tablespoon of face safe shampoo to your dog. Massage it everywhere, around the beard, around the mouth, down in front of the eyes, not into the eyes, but this is a safer product to use around the eyes and it will really clean your dog's face well because the face gets very dirty. I recommend you bathe your dog every three weeks no matter what. In between haircuts, that's right, bathe your dog every three weeks. Follow the steps in this video for bathing, conditioning, blow drying, and brushing. Couple that with weekly brush outs and your dog will never be matted. Now I want you to thoroughly rinse all the shampoo from your dog completely. Get rid of it. Let the shampoo do its job and get it out of the coat because we want no shampoo remaining in the coat when we go to condition this dog. If you don't have a good option for bathing and rinsing your dog, please look for a local pet wash station near you. Tractor Supplies have them and they're wonderful. Time to condition your dog. I'm using the Petals and Tails Conditioner. It's linked below. Read the labels on your bottles. This particular product is a 10 to 1 dilution. Using a mixing bottle, 10 parts water, 1 part conditioner. Shake it very well and then apply it to your dog. Because we pre-brushed Louie before we bathed him today, we've rid his coat of dead hair that's going to cause tangles. So we are conditioning good coat right now. This is going to be a game changer when it gets to time to performing clipper work and scissor work. Conditioner is the key to a perfectly prepared dog so never skip the conditioning step. And to prevent eye build-up, be sure to condition in front of the eyes and around the mouth. This will really help. You see, conditioner seals the cuticle closed again. It keeps things out from staining your dog, like eye build-up. But even more than that, conditioner is a degreaser. A lot of people don't realize that. Whether your dog's skin and coat is dry or greasy, it balances all that. So just never, ever skip the conditioner. Be sure to put it everywhere, even in your dog's paw pads. Trust me, you'll thank me later. We're going to let this conditioner sit on for at least five minutes before completely rinsing it from the coat. If you can, allow the conditioner to sit on your dog for at least 10 minutes. It is the magic sauce. Now it's time to thoroughly rinse. Thoroughly rinse everything out of the coat. You want no residue or build-up in this coat. It's important. People think to leave an amount of conditioner in the coat. Never do that. By letting it sit in the coat for a few minutes, we already allowed it to do its job. Now rinse it out. You still with me? I'm going to show you something really cool right now. So pay attention. I use an absorber towel to remove all excess water from the dog before I begin the drying process. This will speed up the drying process for your dog. It removes so much water from your dog's skin and coat before you get to the drying process, which really speeds things up. Your dog will appreciate that. As it begins to fill with water, you wring it out and continue to dry your dog. I'll link them for you below, guys. They are a big time saver. The next step is cleaning your dog's ears. It's simple and it's important. My favorite everyday ear cleaner for dogs is definitely the Bark 2 Basics Ear Cleaner, which contains witch hazel instead of alcohol. I always perform this step after I have bathed, rinsed, and towed off the dog. It's very important to follow these specific steps, my friends. I saturate the cotton ball with the Bark 2 Basics Ear Cleaner and begin to wipe inside of the ear, only as far in as I can see. That's important. You don't want to go too deep, but you want to clean it. Stuff is down in there, and when the dog shakes after you clean their ears, that's good. They're going to bring more debris to the surface, and then you can get another cotton ball, apply the Bark 2 Basics Ear Cleaner to that new cotton ball, and keep wiping the dog's ear. Then follow it up with a dry cotton ball to ensure you wipe away anything that came to the surface and dry the surface of the ear. Repeat this as many times as you need to until the cotton ball does not have any dirt on it anymore. That means the ear is clean, and these are the cotton balls that I used today to clean Louie's ears. So let's get Louie out of the tub. Now our tub work is done, we can move on to the grooming table, and this is where the rest of our lesson is going to take place. You want to properly harness your dog on the grooming table safely. Hey friend, did you know that I created a table side cheat sheet to dog grooming? These exact steps that you're following in this video, all in one little cheat sheet that you can laminate and keep right at your side to remind you the steps of the groom, so you can continue to groom with confidence throughout your grooming sessions. I used to take orders and sell this product in-house, but I couldn't keep up with shipping demands. So now I'm offering it to you at a lower price, giving you the option to download it and have it printed and laminated at the office store of your choice. Make as many copies as you want. It's linked in the description below. Are you ready to trim nails? Yeah, we're gonna do it. I know you don't want to do it, we're gonna do it. If you don't like trimming your dog's nails, that's fine. You can always call a groomer and get in just for a nail trim. I like to trim the dog's nails right after the bath before I blow dry. The hair is still wet, which makes it easy for me to move it out of the way, so I can see each individual nail as I'm trimming it. I use my thumb and my fingers to hold each digit. That way I'm totally isolating each nail and it's easier to work with. Use my pinky to just push up on that dewclaw, so I can easily see it and trim it. I have several in-depth nail trimming videos on my YouTube channel, so I'm going to link one in the card for you here. I'm also going to link one in the description of this video, so you can refer to it after you watch this. It's easier for you to go watch the in-depth video to get a true understanding of do's and don'ts when trimming a dog's nails. Now saving time when grooming is very important and that's why I have a stand dryer that I use. It's a hands-free dryer that I use for dogs to dry the tails, the head, the ears, all those things. So I will put my stand hands-free dryer on the dog while I'm trimming nails. It also distracts the dog a little bit, so if you have a stand dryer or a hands-free dryer, you can utilize that while you're trimming nails to help speed up the drying process, as well as kind of distract the dog from the nail trim if that's a problem for your dog. So by doing this, by the time I finish trimming the dog's nails, I've already started drying the dog. I'm going to explain here in a second why I use the fluff drying method on the ears and the longer areas of a dog versus when I would use a forced air dryer. The stand dryer is a heated element dryer, but more than that, it's hands-free. So it gives me the chance to really straighten out the coat, especially in the areas where the dog has longer hair, like the tail, the ears, the face. It's important, whichever drying process we use for our dog, that we completely straighten the hair out as much as possible, because when we get to clipper work, we want the hair to be as straight as possible, so that we can get a very smooth, precise finish with our clipper work. Hear me when I say the bathing process and your drying is extremely important to whether or not your clipper work is going to be successful or fail. Use your comb when you're drying the dog. This is called stretch drying. So as the air is blowing on the dog, I'm pulling the hair out straight so it dries nice and straight. The straighter you get the hair, the more precise your clipper and scissor work is going to be when you get to that point of the groom. So switching between your comb and the slicker brush to straighten the hair out while we're fluff drying, hand drying is very important. Now we're going to talk high velocity forced air dryers. I'm going to be using one on Louie here today to finish drying him. I've already dried a good portion of him, but this is going to finish my drying work quickly for me. And though this dryer does not use a heated element as a stand dryer does, it does have enough force of air to straighten out the coat, which is very important. So it blows the air from the skin out of the coat. When I use a forced air dryer, I hold the forced air dryer as far away from the skin as the hair is long. So if his hair is longer on his legs, I would hold it a little further away than I would if his hair was shorter on his body. I would hold the nozzle away from the skin as far away as his hair is long, the length of the hair. There are many models of forced air dryers out there on the market for you guys. Many of them are very affordable and some of them are pretty pricey. They get up to the commercial grade. I'll link several options for you in the description below. Just a little more stretch drying to finish this process. We've used our forced air dryer mainly just on the body, the legs, and the tail. And I want to make sure that Louie is completely dry and his hair is as straight as possible by stretch drying it. Before we start clipper work and finishing work, we're going to brush and comb Louie one more time just to make sure there's no snags or tangles in the hair. The clipper will catch on that and your clipper work will suffer tremendously. So I need to be able to slide a comb all the way through Louie's coat from the skin out. If I can't, then I got to go back to my brush and loosen that area up and check my work with a comb to make sure I can slide the comb all the way through. Because if the comb can get through, so can our clipper. Now before we start with clipper work, you might need a break. These videos I make are very informative and I know it's a lot of information coming at you at once. So go ahead and take a break and smash that like button and hit the subscribe button and ring the bell so you don't miss any of my videos. Back to clipper work, I'm using the Wahl KM Cordless Clipper with a 3 1⁄8 inch guard comb for the body and legs and a 5 1⁄8 inch guard comb to set the length on the head, the cheeks, and the muzzle. I'll be using a number 10 blade under both guard combs and this is how you do it. You seat the blade on the clipper, turn the clipper on, snap the blade in place, turn the clipper back off. There's little hooks on the back of your guard combs and you slide it at the end of the blade and pull it forward and it locks right into place. I always begin my clipper work at the base of the skull of every dog. Start at the base of the skull, come down the neck, come down the back, down the sides of the dog. You want to clip in the direction of the way the coat naturally grows so it grows towards the back of the dog and the underside of the dog and that's the direction you follow when you're making your clipper passes. Again, I'm choosing to use the 3 1⁄8 inch guard comb for the body and the legs but you can use whatever length you prefer. You can buy the whole set which comes in a set of eight and you can choose to go with a quarter inch on the body, you could go with a half inch on the body, whatever you like. You got to take the tension out of the skin when you're clipping so you just pull the skin a little bit taut so that the clipper can make a nice smooth pass and can ride nicely along the dog's body. The guard comb should ride parallel with the dog's skin and every now and then we have to remove our guard comb and take a blade brush and deep pack the hair particles from the blade. I mean you're probably gonna have to do this three four times throughout one grooming session. That's very common and people often overlook doing that and their blade doesn't cut nicely. Now I want you to realize that we're still working on the body here so we're leaving the head alone. We are going to follow the jaw line. Everything under the jaw line is going to be considered body blade work. We're going to address the head in a minute so everything under the jaw line and around the back of the skull and down is body blade and leg work. You typically will go around the dog making three passes to get smooth clipper work. It's easiest to lift your dog up by his front legs if he's a small dog so you can reach the underbelly, the underline of the dog, inside of the legs. This is the easiest way to clip in these areas. Don't worry about around the private areas. We will be addressing that with a different blade in a minute. You don't really want to do the private areas with your guard combs. So when you go back to watch this video again you're going to notice that I went around this dog at least three times to make sure that my clipper work is nice and smooth. You can't make one pass with the clipper and assume that that's good. That's why your clipper work is going to come out looking choppy or uneven. So you will go around the dog about three times to make sure your clipper work is nice and smooth. Hold the ears out of the way so you can get behind the ears and in the throat area we can go against the lay of the coat. It's fine because we're using a guard comb but we're still scooping off right there at that jawline guys. Now you can really see it coming together here. A couple of mistakes you could make with your clipper work is not applying enough pressure to roll the skin in front of the guard comb. That way you're sure to be feeding the hair in properly to the blade. And speaking of the blade, it's time to de-pack it again. Remove your guard comb, de-pack your blade of hair clippings with your blade brush. Now we're going to put on that 5 eighth inch guard comb because we're going to set the length on the head. Remember our guard combs go on top of the 10 blade or a 30 blade. Starting at the base of the skull, opposite of what we did on the body blade work, we're coming towards the nose. Everything from the cheek in front of the ear towards the nose. This hair has a tendency to lay and hang in certain directions so if we come towards the nose, under the jaw, on the cheeks, on top of the head, all the way around, we are setting a nice even length for Louie's head which is going to eliminate a ton of scissor work. Now remember that 10 blade that I suggested we use under our guard comb? We're going to use it to do the rest of the sanitary clipping work. But caution, that blade may be warm or hot so you may need to switch it for a cool 10 blade in order to avoid burning the skin of your dog. Clipper blades do get hot because they are made of metal. The cutting blade is moving back and forth against the back blade. The guard combs do not get hot because they are not a cutting blade. With that 10 blade, I'll just vent the earlobe just a little bit. Then using only the corner of my 10 blade, I am gently just gonna pick away this hair right in the corner of his eye only. Be very steady and accurate when you're trimming anywhere near the ears or the eyes. Pay close attention that you are only trimming the earlobe. Still, with the 10 blade, we're going to come up and just clear out this area around the private area. You can go right over the penis or the vulva gently. You're applying no pressure when we're doing sanitary trimming, guys. No pressure to the blade. We're not rolling the skin in front of the blade when we trim sanitary areas. You can nick or irritate the skin with a clipper blade, but the 10 blade is the safe choice in the sanitary areas. Again, we're still using that same 10 blade and we're gently going to just trim out around the anus to keep this clean and very hygienic for the dog and for you. But apply no pressure on the blade, guys. This is why it's very important that the dog has been bathed, cleaned, brushed. The clipper blade can just lift the hair right into the cutting edge of the blade. Moving on to paw pads, with that same 10 blade, we're gonna gently scoop out in that v-pad in a v-shape. In the big pad, we're gonna scoop the hair out of there gently, and because it's clean, it is easy to remove. Dogs can actually get little mats in the pads of the feet if you don't shave that hair, and this only goes for dogs that get a haircut, meaning they have a continuously growing coat. So when we're shaving the paw pads, we're really just trying to remove anything that the dog would be standing on. We don't want to go up behind the pad, in front of the pad, and we're going to mess up the haircut. Only what the dog is standing on. And our clipper work is done, but you could take another break and hit the like button and smash the subscribe button. It's time for scissor work, my favorite. In this video, you're going to see me using only two shears. These are my shears called Sapphire by Amy Lee, and they are made for the beginner or the everyday pet groomer. I'll link them for you below. Made and sold by Kenchi Grooming. We're going to use the 52 tooth blender and the 8 inch curve shear today. I'll be using a metal grooming comb today, which is an absolute must for scissor work. Our comb lifts the hair so we know exactly what we need to scissor off. Starting at the base of the skull, we are blending in the two lengths. The length from the body and the length from the head. Scissor on an angle so we can bring those two lengths together. Comb the hair out every time you go to scissor something. Under the chin, we're going to make that a nice, even looking, round shape. Right now, it's a little all over the place from our clipper work, but our scissor work is just touching up what needs to be nipped off to make it an even shape. Sometimes it's hardly anything that we're nipping off. I'll show you. See, I combed everything out so I can see what needs nipped off. One snip, oh, maybe two, maybe three, four little snips. It's very important for you to notice that I'm really only using the last quarter of my shear and I'm barely opening it. This gives you a lot of control over what you're nipping and accuracy. The eyebrows come forward. We're not cutting in front of them first. We're going to cut the sides first. Believe me, that may be all we need to do. Just round those sides in a C shape around the side of the eye. Make these cuts first before you trim directly in front of the eyes. Now I can see where to continue that C shape rounding around the front of the eye to meet the corners of the eyes. It really opens the eyes up to trim it this way instead of makes them look like they've got a Dutch haircut. Keep combing forward and look, I'm only nipping the tiniest little bits. With scissor work, we only have to trim what we have to and don't trim the hair that's holding the shape. Speaking of shape, let me show you what I use my blending shears for. Only using the last quarter of this shear, I'm going to carefully come in here and just soften the hair right in front of his eyes, between the eyes. It gives it such a natural look. Blending shears are just to soften our lines that we create with our straight shears or curved shears. What I mean by that is I use my curved shear, in this case, to outline the shape of the dog. Almost like drawing it with a pencil, if that makes sense. We're creating the shape, we're outlining the shape with our straight shear or curved shear. And then I may come back in with the blending shear to just soften that line, so you can't see the straight edge that a curved shear leaves. I like to use the opposite side that I just finished as a guide, so that I can align both sides so they match. After setting the line on both the cheeks, I'm going to round a shape up to that from under the jaw. Then I'm going to move to the right side of Louie's face and match the same work on this side as I just created on the left side. Then continue on with that round shape towards the nose under the muzzle. Be purposeful in the shapes you're creating. Use your thumb to pull this lip back so that we can see the uneven hair in the lip area. When Louie pants or smiles, if we didn't even this out carefully, it would be very uneven when Louie opens his mouth. And now we've followed these steps to trim Louie's head. We're just going to keep combing and fine-tuning anything that's maybe uneven, doesn't align with the other side, doesn't match. We're just touching up now and then we can move on from the head. It'll be done. See, it's not so hard when you know what to trim. So let's move on to scissoring the body, legs, and feet. This is the finishing work for the body, legs, and feet. Use your comb to pull the hair out and see what needs to be evened up from our clipper work. So we're just continuing this shape on his leg, scissoring off any hair that is making his leg not look straight. Comb forward any hair in front of his toes and we're going to make a straight line across the front of his toes, right to his toenails. Use your comb to pull the hair out so you can scissor it off, only in front of the toes. Keep the foot on the table and round to the back of the foot. Don't pick the foot up. If your dog doesn't want to stand still and moves a lot, simply pick up the opposite front foot so they're forced to keep their foot on the table. Let me show you what I mean. See, I have Louie's foot picked up and he is keeping this other foot on the table so that I can scissor it accurately and safely. If Louie's moving his foot around, my shears are sharp. I want to make sure that he's safe. I don't want to nick his little foot. This is a good time for me to point out that I'm still only using the tip of my shear to scissor with. Now we're going to pick the leg up. We've scissored the foot. I'm going to switch to my blending shear. Looking at his leg straight on, I'm just combing everything off to the sides and evening anything up that might be hanging out over. I'm not removing a lot of hair with my blending shear. I'm just tuning it up. Now we've finished his right front leg. We're going to use that leg as a guide to scissor the left front leg. Keep the foot standing on the table when you scissor the legs because that's going to keep Louie's natural body profile for you so you know what to scissor. Don't let your dog sit when you're scissoring them. If they need your help, you can use your other hand to help them stand. Trim the back of the foot after you've trimmed around the foot and the leg. Be very careful here. Notice I have a good hold on his pad. If you're very new to scissor work, keep the foot on the table at all times. Don't pick it up to scissor anything because you could accidentally cut the dog. It takes time to be very comfortable using your dog grooming shear, but guess what? I have a super awesome practice lesson for you. Using paint rollers to practice your scissor work and practice often and you will improve quickly. This helps you build the dexterity and muscle memory that you need to perform good accurate scissor work. I'll link everything you need to create a scissor work practice station at home. And though you see me using blending shears a lot, I want to let you know that I didn't introduce blending shears into my grooming routine until I was a professional groomer for I'd say at least five years. It's a different animal using blending shears and I want you to know that all shears are dangerous if you are not in complete control over them. I suggest perfecting the front legs before you move on to the back legs because the back legs sometimes can be more challenging and I like to match the back legs to my scissor work on the front legs. So by completely finishing the front legs and feet before I move to the back legs sets me up to have a very balanced overall looking groom. I'm going to even out the hair on the top of the tail to match the length on the body and then continue on down that leg trying to just create a straight looking shape. Our clipper work should have already set the length for us. We're just trying to even out anything that the clipper missed which is very common on a small dog. This leg shape is set so it's time to scissor in front of the toe, scissor all the way around the foot to create a round shape. Remember try to keep that foot on the table. You may need to use your comb often to pull the hair out and in place so that you can scissor it very accurately. You may need to go around the foot several times especially on a coat like the Maltese. It's not exactly straight but it's important that we did the feet last because the leg was already set. It was in place and now we know exactly what we have to trim on the foot. So we're working around the dog and since we're back let's tie in this tail with the body. We like to keep our pets clean. We took some of this hair under the tail off when we did the sanitary trim and now we're just evening out anything that was uneven from the clipper work. Angle your shears out and just kind of make the short hair blend into the longer tail hair. You don't want it to look really distinct but we want to keep that area tidy and clean and here on the rump we're just evening out the hair from short to longer hair. Just even it out so it looks like it belongs. Now we pretty much have scissored all the way around the dog including the head. We did that first so let's call this the victory lap. We're going to go around and fine-tune everything. We're going to comb up and we're going to look at anything that pops out and we're going to fix what we missed but don't go yet because we haven't trimmed the ear length. That's coming up. It's going to be the last thing we do. As we're continuing all the way around Louie, just tidying things up, fixing things that keep popping out, I want to keep reminding you and I want you to remember these words. Be very precise and accurate with your scissor work especially around the feet and the face. Look at it close as you're scissoring it. Don't stand far away when you're scissoring a small tedious area. Get real close to it so you can see that you're not going to have an accident and accidentally nick your dog or cut your dog. It is dangerous. Practice your scissor work on those paint rollers. Get used to having control of your shears. It's so so important. Keep your dog's head out of the way from getting too close to your scissor work so always pay attention to those things. Maneuver your dog around in positions that are comfortable to them but also allow you to work very easily and able to see what you're doing. Okay, are you ready? Let's trim the ears. The first thing and most important thing to do is find where your dog's ear actually is. Feel it. Separate the hair. Locate it. Know where it is. Comb the hair on both the ears straight down. Make sure there's no hair hanging in there and trim a length off of one and then slide your shear straight over to the other ear. Make a few snips. That's your placeholder. It's your length holder. Holding your dog's head very still and straight so you get two ears that are the same length. Now we're going to give them the same shape. Find that ear leather again so you know where it is. Comb all the hair down. Be sure to hold your dog's head straight. Not up. Not down. Scissor at a slight angle towards the front of the ear. You may have to do this a few times. Take your time. Comb the hair down and see if it's even. If it's not, tidy it up. You don't need to take much. Just the littlest bit sometimes to make it even and now when we move on to the other ear we know that the length is set. We already did that. Now we just gotta fix the shape. On a slight angle, scissor towards the front of the ear, keeping your dog looking straight ahead. That's very important. Compare it with the other ear. Make sure they're even and once we've set the length and the shape on both ears, we can be sure that anything else we're trimming off needs to go because we already set the length and we already set the shape of the ear and most importantly we've located where the actual ear leather is so we know what we can scissor off. We know what's safe. Take a look at it from all angles and match both ears and there you have it. Those are my steps in order for dog grooming. I follow them no matter what dog I'm grooming or working with. Some dogs don't require a haircut so I skip a step. It's important to these steps to stay on track. Louie and I thank you for joining us today. We wish you happy, safe and successful dog grooming sessions.