Let's talk about Puppies!

This is my new puppy Merlin... he's currently 8 weeks old... he is a Belgian Malinois... and he is short haired!

But many of our puppies these days are not short haired, many of our gorgeous cute pups these days have hair that like ours grows and doesn't stop, meaning they need to regularly pop in to the salon and have a hair cut...

And, because these pups that have hair that continues to grow are fairly recent, as a groomer I come across so many that are quite terrified which has basically come from rushing the introduction process... we as owners just expect them to 'deal with it'. But why would they, when they have not been taught to?

Think of it like a 5 year old child going for their first hair cut...

So, how do we get over this?

We have puppy introduction grooms and we say they need to come in for at least 3 or 4 of these BEFORE they have a full on hair cut as this will give them enough time to get used to the sights, sounds and smells in a grooming salon... because it can be quite overwhelming... (its like standing in the middle of Waterloo Station at rush hour not knowing where you are going... scary stuff!)

Without these introduction grooms, we run the risk of frightening our pups so much that they turn in to the Tasmanian devil every time they go to the grooming salon... and this fear can sometimes be misconstrued as aggression... and the whole situation becomes a bit unmanageable, where pup becomes really unhappy and we worry about losing a finger or 2!!

So, the moral of this story is don't skip the puppy introduction at the groomer... its part of growing up and their socialisation...

A happy pup is a happy owner and happy groomer, (with all 10 fingers!)

(all information with in the blog are my own thoughts, and opinions)