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grooming

Puppies First Groom

We’ve been seeing a lot of puppies lately, so we thought this would be a good time to explain the benefits of bringing your furry little friend in for a puppy trim! A puppy trim is not to be confused with a puppy’s first haircut. A puppy trim consists of a bath, nail trim, ear clean, paw pad and sanitary trim, and trimming the hair in front of the eyes. We recommend doing several of these puppy trims before doing the “big cut.”

When a puppy comes in for his/her first time at the groomers they are generally pretty nervous. There are so many new things that it can be a bit overwhelming. We go slowly with them so they can understand this is a good experience and it is nothing to be scared of. We can figure out what makes them nervous and give you recommendations on things to work on with them. For example, lots of puppies don’t like having their nails trimmed. We recommend that you play with their paws as much as possible so they know there is nothing wrong with their paws being touched. Another example would be rubbing in front of their eyes with your fingers or the end of a spoon. You’re probably thinking that sounds strange. But, when a dog is scared of us going near their face with scissors they wiggle away. If they move too much we run the risk of nicking them and nobody wants that! The last thing we want to do is harm little Fluffy and ruin their experience. One last recommendation and this is the biggest! Brush, brush, brush! We want dogs to like being brushed. When they aren’t brushed on a regular basis long haired dogs can become matted. Mats are when a dog’s hair becomes knotted and tight to the skin. This can cause pain to the dog because the hair is pulling at their skin. Mats can also hide infections or sores. When a dog is matted we have to shave the hair off and start over. As you can imagine if it’s a puppy’s first time at the groomer they aren’t going to enjoy this too much. So brush your little one a couple times a week. Using a slicker brush (bristled brush) and comb will do the trick, but remember a comb is the most important. A slicker brush will only touch the surface and fluff up the hair, a comb will get through the hair.

We see a lot of puppies come in for their first full haircut without any prior grooming experience which can make them very nervous and it can come across as a bad experience to them. They can often times be terrified of the dryers, the clippers, the scissors, and us. This means they move around a lot and sometimes they want to bite. We don’t want to get hurt and we don’t want them to get hurt. We want them to enjoy seeing us!

Our puppy trims are $15 and we can do them up until they are 6 months. We recommend doing several trims before they get their first full cut. And don’t worry if you don’t have a puppy that needs a cut. We also do puppy baths for $10 up until 6 months. Short haired dogs can use the same practice the long haired ones get! Not only do we want them to get used to grooming, we just really like cuddling with little puppies!

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