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Training Matters So, you want to be a pet groomer … stop and think before you choose your training provider because this is a pivotal moment in your career. Caroline Cogan of The Training Room at Dandini’s explains why:
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hoose your training carefully, because your career, the reputation of the industry and the pets in your care are relying on you to be the best you can be. With so many options available becoming a dog groomer appears to be a simple journey, with online courses, college courses and private training all claiming to make you a dog groomer, anything from 20 days upwards the choice should be simple, find somewhere local, quick and cheap. This is pretty much what most prospective students are thinking when they weigh up their training option. Many are retraining looking to change careers or redress the life work balance and due to the vast range of training available this is generally where problems can arise because they don’t see the potential of investing smartly. Dog Grooming can lead to a career where you can earn £30-40K a year and work hours that suit your lifestyle. You can work around picking up the kids, work from home or even go bigger and set up your own salon, the opportunities are endless. Training courses that suggest you can do this after just 20 days training imply your journey will be an easy one with skills effortlessly acquired or even worse training from an online course with no practical tuition whatsoever. Unfortunately for prospective students there are some schools suggesting this and it does lead to misconceptions around how long it takes for someone to become competent in the skills required to become a dog groomer. At this enquiry stage you really may not have a clue about what dog
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grooming involves or have experienced a real working salon. You may worry you won’t be any good or perhaps not enjoy it. All valid and important questions. However, it is important to put those questions to one side and revisit them once you have done a taster day. It is only then that you will really know whether dog grooming is for you.
Why are taster days essential? Taster days are experience days and give any prospective student hands-on experience in the field - water, hair, noise, fatigue the lot! They are an important part of your journey into dog grooming. It is on a taster day that you will find out if the environment is what you imagined. Programmes such as Pooch Perfect have done wonders for opening the public’s eyes into what
grooming is really like and how hard and technical it can be. But for many people the rose-tinted spectacles are still on and the reality of what a day’s hard graft as a dog groomer consists of is still beyond comprehension. It only really sinks
