All dogs need several areas of grooming maintenance. The degree of grooming needed depends on the breed of the dog, mostly because of their coats. The basic grooming needs are:

Nails
Coat
Teeth
Anal Sacs

Many of us, with dogs that have high maintenance coats or hair, have entertained the idea that we could do this just as well as a professional groomer. Groomers are expensive. I could save tons of money if I groomed my own dog.

From my personal experience, (my dog is a poodle-mix)it is hard to save money when your dog is resistant to the grooming process. My dog, Daisy, is terrified of anything that vibrates. Daisy is a rescue dog ad I see extreme terror in her eyes when I bring the clippers anywhere near her.

Still determined to save money, I tried just using scissors to trim her. She doesn't have an elaborate cut. I love the puppy cut with mustache, kind of disheveled anyway. EURIKA!! This will work perfectly. I save money on groomers and if I mess up, oh well, it is just a puppy cut on a poodle mix. SCORE Except that Daisy doesn't like scissors either.

Training you dog for grooming needs to start when the dog is a puppy. I have explained Daisy's phobia's already. All I have to do is trick her into loving the grooming process. My brainstorm had already been in training without my knowledge.

I have always loved playing with all of my pets feet. Dogs are ticklish and that amuses me. As soon as I adopt a dog, my very first goal is to let her trust me enough to play with her feet. Daisy, totally relaxed, exposes her belly to me. Instead of just petting her, I instead explore all of her limbs, put pressure on semi-sensitive areas. I pushed the boundaries of her trust. She never felt and pain and ultimately trusted me when she had feared before.

Eventually, as I follow the same routine, I introduce the scissors. I am able to take the first three snips before she even realized what was going on. As soon as she realized, I began adding as many 'your such a pretty puppy' and ' what a good girl' positive comments.

Now this is the key, I continued to trim her until she showed signs of stress. Then I stopped. We went outside for a walk, and maybe even watched a TV show, before I began again.

Daisy understands me when I say it is time for a haircut. She sees and understands the gathering of utensils for the job.

Bottom line, I have trained Daisy that even though she does not like the scissors, she will receive extra love and attention before, she will get a break when she wants one, and she feels OH SO PRETTY when it is done.

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