I think he is still adorable, and I'm sorry you had to go through this again. I know I would be IRATE spending all that time on the phone and then again when I dropped my baby off telling her EXACTLY what I wanted and they still don't follow dirrections!!!!!

I am so affraid of the groomers that I think I am going to atempt to do my Essie myself.

My mom took her morkie in to Petsmart grooming to get help with some matting. They shaved her bald in places where the mats were and left the hair long in other places. She looked horrible. On top of that, she had a scratch on her back thigh from the clippers cutting her. The store manager gave her the money back and said that person wont be cutting hair anymore.

Im not saying your groomer didnt follow your instructions because sometimes they dont.

i had a new client the other day who gave her dog a home haircut and then brought him to me to "fix" it. The kid dropped of (she wasnt really a child but the daughter) Ok so what am I doing to your dog today.. I dont know... Do you want a hair cut.. I dont know... Do you just want me to trim it and fix this haircut... I guess. At that point I had no clue and just attempted to do something to the dog. He looked horrible the owner botched the haircut that much there was no fixing it and I know how some people get about having their dogs shaved down so I didnt do that. Ok its gonna be about 2-3 hours and I will give you a call. She gives me the dog and stands outside the salon for a few minutes and then comes back in.. Can I use your phone.. Ok.. she puts her mom on the phone and shes yelling at me because I crated her dog how dare I do such a thing.. I explained all dogs are crated while waiting, (yorkies are never dried in a cage only hand dried and even the dogs who are cage dried are NOT dried with hot air). I was finishing up a dog when they showed up. I dont want my dog in a crate so I offered her whats called an express grooming. the dog is done start to finish and we gaurentee the dog is done in 90 minutes. I tried to get some instuctions out of her but all she wanted was she said a proper hair cut and her dog not crated. At this point again I knew I wasnt getting more info out of her and again did what I tried to do to fix him. I even told the manager I have a feeling this woman is going to complain and it was my first ever yorkie complaint since I have been grooming for 12 years. She calls and is furious and I am not allowed to fix the haircut because she claims I might harm her dog (actually she used something harsher then that) because she complained. So now I have to be gone while someone else fixes her dog. Im beyond insulted and hurt because she claimed I might hurt her dog :( I would NEVER do such a thing to any animal. At that point I seriously wouldnt be comfortable to have this dog back in the shop because she made such a statement that I will harm her dog. I would of refunded her money and asked her to go elsewhere but its not my store and I cant make those decisions. Ok venting done.. Im just so insulted by this not even the fact that I had a complaint about my grooming at the fact she claimed im going to hurt her dog

put your groomin money into the tools you need and do it yourself.. i would never trust a groomer and leave dogs alone during grooming.. it is not that hard to do:)

Its comments like this that drive me crazy.. DONT SPECULATE ALL GROOMERS ARE BAD!!!! I have been doing this 12 years and its comments like this that make the industry look bad. Until you can physically go to every grooming shop and experience all groomers.. Get over it
Can u proove all groomers are bad.. Probably not!!

good groomers
 

at least petsmart has windows where the animals can be seen..
too many horror stories about blow dryers
im sure you are a good groomer :animal36
but, personally i would not drop off my dogs for 5 hours... i would take one at a time and stay
but i cant afford theses services anyway
that is why i was forced to do it myself
but if i was rich, i would stay at the groomers and watch and assist with holding.. i am entitled to my opinion.
:aimeeyork

If you are nervous about groomers, see if they will let you watch first. My groomer let me watch her groom another dog, then my puppy. My puppy was nervous of course, but I was impressed at how her and her assistant handled the dogs. I even asked her to do some specific things like trim around the eyes and her bottom and she did a great job. She let my puppy see and feel the buzz of the clippers before she actually put the clipper on her. I will definately take her back.

your story is shocking and sad.. i am sorry for your bad experience.. life is not fair sometimes.. there are a few crazy peoploe out there..
i dont mind crating.. i use my crate to blow dry.. groomers usually have great equipment..
not everyone can do their own grooming. and you sound like a wonderful
groomer... i would let you do my dog.. but i want to watch..:aimeeyork:aimeeyork

I'm going to have to check those out! I groom Mr. Biggs myself inbetween grooms, but I always get stuck when it comes to doing his ears and legs....somehow I can never get them right....they always come out choppy looking. lol

I don't think she really meant that all groomers are bad... I think she was referring to the recently publicized deaths of dogs at groomers. I myself have been to a varity of different groomers....so far I have only found 1 that grooms my dog to my specifications (which aren't unreasonable...I just tell them how longi want the har and that i don't want their face to look like a round circle, which is what i usually get when i mention a puppy cut...and also that i don't want the hair above his nose to be shaved).. I have been to many groomers that do the same "puppy cut" for all breeds of dogs....but just like with humans, a bob looks different on people w/ different types of hair. lol. I've also been to groomers that want me to drop my dog off for an appointment at 8am and then call me at 5:30 to tell me that he is ready. That's over 5 hours and completely unacceptable in my opinion. I don't mind leaving him for up to 3 hours, but over that is just unreasonable, because it shouldn't take more than 3 hours to groom a dog. I've also been to groomers that leave the dog unattended on the table to go and check out another customer.. all it takes is a second for that dog to jump off the table and hang itself.

I don't think she was direction her comment at you, but I for one do not trust MOST groomers. It's like when you bring your child to daycare or get it a babysitter...you don't know what someone is going to do to them when you are not there.

again, myproblem was that it was almost like they did the EXACT opposite of what I said. I took him for;
1) EARS Specifically mentioned that I could not bring myself to pull the hair out of them and they were pretty bad, so make sure they got that. His ears were still full of hair. Isn't this a standard part of ANY grooming?

2) BUTT - they didn't touch it

3) BELLY - they didn't touch

4) Paws - they kind of did that

Specifically said we were trying to grow him out, so didn't want any body fur cut, THey cut him all over

Specifically talked about the last groomer shaving the bridge of his nose, and we had been growing it for six months to get it where we could almost get it into his topnot, DO NOT CUT IT, repeated over and over,
It is all gone now and we are back to square one six months ago.

Biggest issue was that they never even said sorry until I said you know if you had apologized right off the bat, it wouldn't be as bad. Then they said, Oh well we are sorry. Yeah right, that is convincing.

When I told her I wanted my money back, she gave me $10 back. That's fine I said, I will not ever come again, and will NOT refer you since you can't take direction. For some reason, then she got all defensive. HA Like she had a reason to be mad.

Oh NO WAY would I have paid! I would have asked to talk to the manager and explained exactly how you did in this post. I haven't had a professional grooming with my almost 1 year old yet, and the only way I will do it is if I can watch.

That's true I know there are good ones out there...I just don't quite know where to find them yet. I may have to do the mobile kind where I can hang around.

What deaths of dogs at groomers?? OMG I have seen them just leave dogs on the table, that is scary as my Yorkie may try to jump, where as my Pom seems to know that isn't a good idea. They need a better restraint system.

I was just posting about this in another thread and I highly recommend to everyone... ALWAYS WATCH ON YOUR FIRST DOG GROOMING. Its a must! ;) You just cant trust that someone else will know exactly what you want or how you want it... Think of the outcome if you would have been able to watch :thumbup: You could have told them what you didnt like as they were doing it and saved yourself a lot of irritation... Im very sorry that you had yet another bad grooming experience... I guess, if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself :)

And he's still cutie either way :p