While there is surely no substitute for professional grooming, giving your clients instruction on how to best take care of everything from a Golden Retriever’s matted hair and a Bichon Frise’s dry skin, to a cat’s earwax and nail trimming, can make your job easier when these pets come in for their regular appointments. The following are some best practices to share with your customers so they can properly maintain their pet’s grooming and health care treatments from home and in between visits to a professional groomer.

Keep Teeth Clean

People care so much about their own oral hygiene that’s it is hard to believe they ignore their pet’s need for a clean and healthy mouth. Yet, teeth cleaning (and, unfortunately, teeth extracting) is one of the biggest grooming needs for animals. Sharing with your customers the proper toothpaste and toothbrush for their pets is crucial. They may have no idea what tools to use and surely are uncertain about the proper techniques for cleaning their cat or dog’s mouth.

Clipping and Filing Nails

Another necessary grooming treatment that pet owners often ignore is the clipping and filing of their pet’s nails. Whether they own a cat or dog, ignoring this treatment can be uncomfortable for a pet. Alternatively, clipping and filing improperly can leave a pet in pain and cause irreparable damage. Helping your clients know exactly how to pinpoint the right part of the nail to clip can help them avoid damaging blood vessels and tender nerve endings.

Bathing

It’s amazing how many people think that bathing their pet means tossing them in the bathtub like a toddler and using human soaps to wash away dirt and grim. What they don’t know is that human shampoos and body washes are not Ph balanced for a dog or cat’s skin. Using the wrong PH balance and/or harsh chemicals from human shampoos can irritate a pet’s skin and strip away necessary protective oils from their skin and coats. Human skin tends to be more acidic and our Ph balance ranges from 5.5 to 5.7 while dogs have a more neutral Ph balance ranging between 6.2 and 7.4. You may even consider selling pet shampoo at your clinic to ensure that your clients are using the proper shampoo on their pets. Besides the right shampoos, clients need to know the best and most gentle techniques to bathe their pets so the experience is a not traumatic for their furry friends.

In addition to sharing these grooming tips with your clients, it may also be necessary for your clinic to offer basic pet grooming classes or instructional appointments to teach your clients the right and wrong way to groom their beloved fur babies. By giving your clients the proper education, they can avoid hurting their pets such as cutting nails too close to the quick or using the wrong shampoos that leave skin dry and damaged. Offer each class participant a tote bag with your business card, customized postcards , a calendar , and of course, samples. One thing is for sure, once your clients realize how much time, skill, and patience goes into grooming their pets, they may opt to leave the work to the professionals!