The Pain We Don’t See: Why Groomers Need Dental Training

When I first came across Emmi Pet and Cleany Teeth in 2017, they seemed too good to be true. A device that can be used by any lay person to remove tartar from a dog’s teeth was surely a gimmick. I was intrigued though and looked for a course so I could offer it to customers. Aha! There was the catch – there were no course, training, book, nor guide available. All I could find was a seminar at a grooming competition, so I eagerly attended, hungry to know more about this magical device. The speaker only had a 30-minute slot, so not enough time to provide in-depth education, and they started the talk by explaining how to use the brush. During the seminar, the speaker said to expect blood and not to worry because it’s ‘normal’. I immediately bristled in my seat and hoped my face wouldn’t betray me. Well, you know from years of Corsodyl adverts that bleeding gums is a symptom of gingivitis. The seminar made me even hungrier for knowledge. I found a UK distributer and had a call with them about being part of their distribution team as I expected that would be my ticket into training, but it wasn’t. There was no training! By this stage, though, I had learned a bit about how the brushes worked and was emotionally invested. It seemed like a very much needed tool for improving the quality of life of pets. A human wouldn’t question the need to brush their teeth twice daily in between visiting their dentist, yet how many dogs get their teeth brushed at home? I could clearly see how this technology filled that gap.

I turned to veterinary CPD and searched for short courses aimed at vet nurses; there were plenty about radiography and x-raying. I found a couple of veterinary books to get me started and read them four times to absorb the information. As a visual and kinaesthetic learner, digesting information from a book is challenging, but they gave me a great start, and I felt ready to buy the brush. I started with Cleany Teeth because, back then, reviews suggested better results, and it was more expensive so I figured ‘you get what you pay for’. My brush stopped turning on after a few years and I tried the Emmi pet version 2 and found I got great results with both brushes.

My working cocker, Duke, was my guinea pig. Without a thought for PPE, I got stuck in and with plenty of toothpaste and water, I applied the brush around the whole of his mouth. He had good teeth at the time, and would have been around five years old. He has genetically good teeth and had been fed a raw diet so there wasn’t much tartar at all. It was a great success; I felt like I’d cracked the code. I practised on my other two dogs, who were also raw fed with genetically good teeth, and it was great.

I then started offering it to my grooming clients as a paid for service and started to realise how bad some pets’ teeth really were. I referred over half of my enquiries to the vet and was met with annoyance from my customers. Why would I offer this great new service if I wasn’t able to do it? Some customers tried to persuade me to do it, and I even lost one or two clients who found a groomer who would clean their dog’s teeth. That stung a bit.

Dog groomers don’t do their job if they don’t love dogs and aren’t passionate about animal welfare. So many groomers have pushed the industry to “charge their worth” because it isn’t worth doing it if you don’t earn a living wage. We risk our own health and expose ourselves to risks of COPD, long-term mobility problems, hair splinters (no joke) and dog bites. So, I knew the groomer who took my clients thought they were helping, but they didn’t realise they were causing the dog immense pain and denying it veterinary treatment - the paradox of good intentions.

After a few years, I honed my customer service for teeth cleaning and gave vet referrals in a way that made customers feel good about their pet ownership, rather than leaving them feeling ashamed for overlooking their pet’s oral health and missing the signs. I made sure the way I advertised the service emphasised that it was replacing the lack of at-home dental care rather than misleading customers into assuming it was an alternative – that’s imperative. And I felt good about the vet referrals; that was the real way of improving the dog’s quality of life. Then, a client came along that reinforced that belief. It was a Norfolk Terrier who had come to me from being a pup for hand stripping. I had established his adult coat and had a great bond with him. He was typical terrier at heart though and would only tolerate grooming for 90 minutes before he would start to get irritated and mouth at my hands. I had a great rapport with his owner, and she was happy to bring him in to have more frequent sessions so that he could be stripped one day, then bathed and finished a couple of days later. When he was about three years old, she asked me to clean his teeth as she knew from her long experience of owning Norfolk Terriers that the breed is prone to dental problems. I did an oral health check and decided that he had too much tartar to be a suitable candidate for the ultrasonic brush, so I made the vet referral and created an action plan for the customer. His owner took him to the vet, and he had several premolars out and a descale.

The change in the dog’s behaviour at his next appointment was astounding, something I wasn’t prepared for or expecting. He was the most relaxed dog I had ever groomed, so much so that I would have thought he’d picked up an opioid on his way in. No terrier in sight! No mouthing or air snapping. I did the whole groom in one go while he laid down on the table looking out of the window. He had not a care in the world. It was my first experience of a dog that had been suffering from hidden pain, and I was shocked. His teeth weren’t even ‘that bad’! That shocked me too. If I had been worried about being too cautious with vet referrals, I needn’t have. He had only a third of his teeth covered with tartar, only mild gum inflammation and no bleeding to the touch. These are the kinds of indicators we can use to assess suitability for ultrasonic teeth cleaning, and many groomers would have cleaned his teeth and missed the signs that his premolars needed extracting, unintentionally causing him a lot of pain and mental trauma. We work hard to get dogs to trust us to make grooming a better experience for everyone involved.

Renowned groomers in the industry had also identified the need for training and approached VetSkill, an awarding organisation offering veterinary nursing qualifications, collaborating to develop the VetSkill VTEC Level 3 Award in Preventative Dental Care and Oral Hygiene.  This qualification expertly fills the gap in dog groomer education for offering a teeth cleaning service. Achieving this qualification will arm you with the knowledge you need to correctly carry out an oral health assessment and safely offer a teeth cleaning service that truly promotes animal welfare and improves quality of life for your clients. It will make you feel confident about your role as a pet professional.

I know there are still mixed feelings about groomers offering teeth cleaning, and when the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) made its statement about anaesthesia-free dental services in 2023, many groomers felt shamed or put off. The problem lies not with the toothbrushes and technology, but with the lack of vet referrals. If you’ve ever felt unsure about offering teeth cleaning, or worried you might miss something important, this qualification is for you. It’s not just about brushing – it’s about understanding, assessing, and advocating for the dogs in your care and knowing how to handle that situation with the customer. Groomers are proud of their dog grooming qualifications, and the industry has levelled up over the last decade. Teeth cleaning is the next hill to climb, and our solution is right here.