Is dog grooming a good career choice for you?

Dog grooming is a very attractive job for many as there are many perks – being your own boss, booking clients to work around your routine, earning a reasonable wage and there’s always a demand. The pet industry proved to be recession proof in 2012 and continues to grow due to changes in our spending habits and lifestyle choices.

I’ve been in the industry since 2009. I’ve met lots of groomers at networking events since then and have trained many more, and I have noticed that there are trends in who is drawn to this career and I’ve noticed it’s overwhelmingly neurodivergent people. I say that as a personal observation, I don’t have any statistics to back it up but I’ve seen many groomers online go through the experience of getting a diagnosis as a adult. It’s probably also because I’m drawn to ND people due to being from an ND family and am self-diagnosed.

I’ve overthought this a lot though and there are so many reasons why dog grooming is perfect for ND’s. Firstly, we must receive the most praise any adult can get. Customers are so happy to collect their dogs after their pamper we get a dopamine hit every 90 minutes. Every 60 minutes we’re questioning our own life choices as we drain ourselves physically while we wrestle a screaming GSD and clean up more urine. We’re mentally exhausted from desensitising the black and white shit, sorry shih tsu, and watching its body language so closely we’ve temporarily gone mentally blind (or was that the ND?). We’re not just planning our dream holiday, we’re planning our retirement. But then the customer returns and goes wild to see their dog and its cute new haircut we accidentally cut ourselves creating and that dopamine hit fuels us for the next one.

As a person with PDA tendencies (pathological demand avoidance not public display of affection, that would be traumatic), a 90 minute turnaround is perfect! If I could see all my business ideas through to the end I would be rich and famous. I see a gap in the market, come up with a fantastic idea, try to create the product then hit a wall. The dopamine never came, I moved on. But I can’t move on from dog grooming because my next customer has arrived and peed on my plant. I need to get him in the bath before he can target the bed.

I tell my learners that a routine is important because the dogs like predictability because that means safety. The dogs thrive on that. I like it but then I get bored and when I get bored I self-sabotage. But then the difficult dog arrives. The nervous one that turns aggressive from fear and needs expert handling. Yeah Ok that’s every other dog and it keeps my mind busy, no time for self-sabotage.  Then I get another dopamine hit because the dog gently licked my chin, which I noticed as an appeasement behaviour and recognised the dog starting to trust me. I just need to gel my chin with sanitiser, one sec. I can’t use a baby wipe because they’re for the dog’s ears and the packet isn’t sterile. It’s a good job I can manage my OCD now, gosh I struggled with that as a teen.

Not all dog groomers are neurodivergent, of course, but it really does suit us well.

If you like lists, like me, here is a list of essential qualities I think you need as a dog groomer:

1.       You must like following rules. You need to have strong ethics and a desire to improve the welfare of animals and to do so you need a code of conduct and a moral compass. Welfare is our top priority.

2.       You must be drawn to animals. You need to be able to develop strong handling skills and intuition. Today’s dogs have many behavioural problems for all sorts of reasons from bad breeding to poor discipline and poor diet. There are hundreds of things that can adversely affect behaviour and dogs generally don’t like the sensory input from the grooming experience so you need to be able to communicate well with them. You can absolutely learn this but if you don’t particularly like animals it’s not for you.

3.       You need to have a creative flair. You don’t need to be Picasso but styling a dog requires problem solving skills and an eye for design. You need to be able to assess conformation and the coat type, interpret the customer’s request and create a masterpiece. We can teach this as well but you’ll find it tricky to master if you’re not creative at all.

4.       You need to be interested in health. Dogs generally see a vet once a year but see us at least 6 times more. We’re usually the first to notice changes and spot symptoms of an underlying health problem. You need to have some interest in health in order to learn about it and be able to influence it positively and avoid exacerbating it. We can teach this but all groomers should make this their CPD topic because there’s so much to learn.

5.       You need to be able to have a customer rapport. Most animal people will say they’re not people-people but our customers are placing a lot of trust in us when they leave their pets with us and being able to communicate well with them makes everything work. We need to be able to chat about their dog’ health, behavioural needs and problem coats. We need to be able to empathise with the customer and treat them with care as well.

6.       You need to be able to adapt. Because we care so much we can be a bit righteous at times. It’s a passion. But we need to be able to grow personally and learn from mistakes. Mistakes are hard to process when it involves an animal and we care so deeply. This industry has grown so much since I joined it, and I choose to grow with it.

Think your brain might be wired for the salon? We built a 60-second diagnostic tool to help you see how your natural instincts align with the craft.

Click here to take our 60-Second Career Fit Quiz or drop us a line to chat about our upcoming training intakes.