Creating Great Grooming Dogs Christine Neumyer Smith

Emotions And The"Why?" Ep 186  Episode 186. Is it okay to talk about emotions and animals? Is it anthropomorphic to talk about emotions and animals? Where is the line, between what we see and the story that we build around what we see? And let's talk about emotions and what we observe this week. 
Find all show details, including transcripts, at CreatingGreatGroomingDogs.com You can find my online classes at Whole Pet Grooming Academy WholePetNH.com For more information about my Master Groomer Behavior Specialist diploma program, go to MasterGroomerBehaviorSpecialist.com
You're listening to the Creating Great Grooming Dogs show.
[00:00:21] I am Chrissy Neumeier Smith. I'm a Master Groomer Behavior Specialist. I'm a Certified Professional Groomer, a Certified Behavior Consultant for Canines, a Certified Professional Dog Trainer. And I'm also the owner of Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire, and an instructor at Whole Pet Grooming Academy.
[00:00:38] So this week we are talking about emotions. I had an entirely different topic started off this week, but it kept circling back to feelings and emotions. And I really wanted to delve into that a little bit deeper before we get into a topic that makes some assumptions that we would be on all on the same page.
[00:01:00] We're not going to be all on the same page. So I decided that I really needed to revisit this particular piece all on its own. We've talked about anthropomorphic before, , which is when we attribute human feelings and desires onto dogs or other animals without really thinking a little bit more basically, what is this animal trying to do?
[00:01:21] So we as humans talk about emotions and feelings, but let me ask you this. Let's consider this. Are we always correct when we try to figure out the why of another person? Oh. Do we always understand why another person is feeling the way they're feeling? , are we good with that? Do we always get it right?
[00:01:45] When we are interacting with another person using shared language, expressing thoughts and feelings, do we always get it right? Hmm, that's interesting, isn't it? do we? Another question. Are we always good at explaining the reason for our own emotions? Are we good at explaining the why of what we're feeling and how that's affecting the way that we're behaving today or yesterday or last week, right?
[00:02:16] Are we good at that? This answer is going to vary from person to person. Some people will be really good at that. , others are constantly trying to work on it. And some are blissfully unaware, but here's something to consider. Ask someone close to you. Ask, maybe it's a parent or a sibling or a spouse or a child.
[00:02:38] Ask someone really close to you. Maybe it's your best friend. Are you good at understanding their point of view when they're trying to explain something to you? Are you good at expressing your own point of view when you're trying to explain how you feel? What you're going to find is that most of us are not great at this.
[00:02:56] We're not very good at figuring out the why of emotions and expressing those emotions and figuring out why we behave the way we do. We observe behavior in the humans around us, but we don't always understand the why. So why are we talking about this? It probably seems a little off topic, doesn't it? But how does this relate to dogs?
[00:03:21] Yeah, but you thought I was getting off track here. Um, the way it relates to dogs is we observe behavior. We see what the dog is doing with their body, but do we always understand why they are doing it? Do we understand the feelings, the emotions being expressed through that behavior? We see the behavior, what is observable to us, but how many of us can correctly guess why the dog is doing it?
[00:03:51] It's not easy. It's not easy. And as we just discussed, even amongst other humans, when we are trying to figure out what another human feels, what another human thinks, and they're literally trying to

Why Some Dogs Get Worse Every Time Ep185 [00:00:00] Episode 185. Why do some dogs get worse about grooming time after time and they just keep getting worse? Shouldn't they eventually realize that it doesn't hurt them? Why don't they learn to just go with the flow? That's what we're gonna cover today in episode 185. The Six Reasons Why Some dogs get worse every time.
[00:00:18] I am Chrissy Neumyer Smith. This is the Creating Great Grooming Dogs Show. I am a master groomer behavior specialist, a certified professional groomer, a certified behavior consultant for canines, a certified professional dog trainer, an instructor at Whole Pet Grooming Academy, and I'm the owner of Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire.
[00:00:35] And this my friends and colleagues, is the show where dog grooming and dog training meet. So I wanna talk about six reasons why some dogs get worse every time. There are plenty of other reasons, but I narrowed it down to about six. But the first and foremost, before we even get into those six reasons, I do wanna clarify.
[00:00:55] Dogs are having difficulty with being groomed. They aren't giving us a difficult problem. They are having a problem. So at its very core, if a dog is continuing to have problems, then their issue isn't being addressed. And I want you to pause and think about that for a minute. 'cause we don't often think about it that way.
[00:01:16] Does this dog have an issue that maybe has been overlooked? Maybe we haven't really found out what makes this dog tick and that's really common. So we'll go through six reasons. Why many of these dogs have an issue, but really at the end, there are lots and lots of reasons for a dog to continue to have difficulty being groomed, and that's what's happening.
[00:01:39] If a dog is getting worse every time or staying the same, staying at the same level of, nervousness, aggressiveness, , it's because they have an underlying issue that maybe hasn't been addressed. So let's get into our six reasons. And I'm gonna say I did pull this off of a Facebook discussion.
[00:01:58] This was directly out of a Facebook discussion. , I didn't join into the discussion. I know I probably should have, but I decided to make a podcast episode instead. , because there are so many reasons, and it's more than just a quick post, but what I found was a lot of groomers, , were concerned about just one aspect.
[00:02:17] So a lot of these six reasons came up. We aren't always thinking about all of them. Everybody had like a quick one or two answers, maybe not six or 20,000. 'cause really it's more like 20,000. So let's talk about the first one. And if you are involved with any of my classes or anything like that, or involved with dog training, one of the first things I always want us to do if we see a behavior problem, whether you're a trainer or a groomer, Anything.
[00:02:46] If you see a behavior problem or a behavior problem that's continuing to get worse, our first question is, is there a health issue? Is there a physical reason for this pet to be behaving this way? And I'm gonna say pet, because these are not just for dogs. A lot of these things are for, for cats too, for other types of animals.
[00:03:05] If there is a behavior problem happening, I want us to first think, is there a physical reason? So health issues could be something like pain. And I know that a lot of people who are not groomers might not realize that. A lot of our dogs live with a lot of different types of pain. Just like people come on, they get older, they maybe have sore hips or sore toes, or ear problems or tooth problems.
[00:03:33] , lots of things that could be causing pain. And a lot of our owners don't recognize that. They don't see it, they don't notice it. And sometimes they kind of beat themselves up when we tell them. , but I want you to think about. Is there a reason why this dog could be in pain? So I think we tend to think about older dogs, you know, our senior dogs, but I'm

Episode 184, but we touch his feet. We touch his feet, just like the trainer and the groomer. And the veterinarian said, why is this dog still having a problem? That's our question for this week. 
This is the Creating Great Grooming Dogs show. I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith. I'm a certified professional groomer, a certified behavior consultant for canines, a certified professional dog trainer. I'm a fear free certified groomer and. Fear free certified trainer. And I'm also a master groomer behavior specialists. I'm an instructor at the Whole Pet Grooming Academy, and I own Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire. And this, my friends and colleagues is the show where grooming and training meet. 
So this week, we are going to talk about. Foot touching. It's really common advice. Most pet owners have heard this. We want to prevent problems. We want your dog to feel comfortable with having their feet done and their nails done by massaging their feet often. And a lot of our owners do that. A lot of our owners are really great about, Massaging that dog's feet pretty often. And getting that done. Now here's the problem. We still have problems with our dogs and their feet. And why is that? I mean, if, if you're thinking about it, but I massage his feet and a lot of our owners have been doing it and doing a great job, but why do we still see problems?
Now there are a couple of reasons. And the one I want to start off with is. Foot touching is not like nail trimming. Oh, I know everyone just went. What. But wait, but we touch his feet. But for many dogs that's enough. Okay. It's not a bad idea to touch their feet. Just that for so many dogs, that's not enough. For a lot of our dogs. They're like, ah, cool. Okay. Someone touches my feet and I don't mind when it turns into, touching them with tools or trimming nails.
So let's talk a little bit more about why that doesn't translate. So touching feet is an important part of doing a nail trim. But when an owner is massaging a dog's feet. Let's talk about just that foot massage thing that most of our owners do. And if you're an owner, you have probably done this. You've got your dog on the sofa and you're gently rubbing a foot and just kind of relaxing and your dog doesn't have to really do anything. They're probably laying on the couch and you're just like massage in their foot. And that is nothing like holding an individual toe. Holding an individual toenail. And then moving a tool and actually trimming. Or grinding. Think about some of the tools that we have. So let's talk about some of those. , We have touching the pot in a different way than many people do a foot massage. Foot massages tend to be kind of haphazard and like snugly wuggly. And that's a great place to start. Okay. Every dog should start there. If they can't handle that, they're not going to be able to handle other types of touching. Just that the problem is, is that it doesn't go far enough. It doesn't translate well to all the other things that we need them to be doing.
So let's talk about touching in terms of also individual toes, maybe it's part of you as an owner or as the handler, or as the person who's working with this dog. Pretending to have to really see that nail. But like, our focus is different than when we're just casually touching feet. When we actually are like, oh, I need to see that. What is that? What is that? They're out there. That's really different. When we're holding individual toes, when we're trying to pull hair back away from a toe. When we're trying to brush a foot. We have things like brushes and Combs, maybe scissors. Um, we have a Clippers, the hair trimmers, right? Those vibrate. They make some sound. have a variety of different types of tools that we might touch feet with and that's more than just a massage. It doesn't really say the same thing as a massage, as a foot massage.
Let's also talk about, the sprayer in the tub. It sounds weird and it feels funny. It's not like a foot massage

This week we're talking about how to make owners happy. How do we make a living working on dogs with difficulty with grooming? Now, this is very much for the groomers, but this is also for owners to understand where groomers are coming from and for the trainers and for anybody else because our customer service angle in the grooming industry needs to be tweaked and needs to be changed.
My example of a Safety Policy. 
"To provide the highest level of care for your pet, we have a safety policy. If at any time your pet gets nervous, anxious, scared, aggressive, or even overly silly, we slow down and help your pet to be comfortable and calm. It’s very important to us that the pets in our care are kept safe and stress-free. We use sharp tools and need to prevent injuries. We will work with your pet to help them feel comfortable. This will build a great experience for successful groomings for your pet’s lifetime. Your pet may not be groomed to perfection today. We will charge for the time that we spend working with your pet."
 
Ep183
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[00:00:00] Chrissy: Episode 180 3. This week we're talking about how to make owners happy. How do we make a living working on dogs with difficulty with grooming? Now, this is very much for the groomers, but this is also for owners to understand where groomers are coming from and for the trainers and for anybody else because our customer service angle.
[00:00:19] In the grooming industry needs to be tweaked, needs to be changed. This is the Creating Great Grooming Dog Show. I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith. I'm a master groomer behavior specialist. I'm a certified professional dog trainer, a certified behavior consultant for canines, a certified professional groomer. I am an instructor at Whole Pet Grooming Academy and I own Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire.
[00:00:40] And this my friends and colleagues is the show. We're grooming and training Meet. Start off with the common story that I hear from groomers. Okay. Because a lot of groomers reach out to me. My Facebook group and my Facebook page haven't been very active because I think that, um, most of the time people just reach out to me directly.
[00:00:58] And that's awesome. That's great guys. If you feel like we're friends, we are. So just go ahead and reach out and I will contact you. But what happens is, this is when I hear a lot is, , he was so bad that by the end he was being really aggressive. What should I do next time? How do I work on a dog like that?
[00:01:15] Now my question is, did you complete the groom? And they're like, well, yes. But by the end he was really getting so much worse. But that is because you keep trying to get the grooming finished. Okay. So I wanna talk about how we can help our owners be happy and understand what we're doing while also helping the dog, because there's a customer service angle that needs to be tweaked just a little bit.
[00:01:44] We are allowing our customers to think, I want this haircut. I'm buying a haircut. Like it's an object on a shelf. You know, you sold that. Guy a haircut, and that's the haircut I want for my dog. So that customer got one and my dog can't, you know, like as if it's [00:02:00] available for purchase. It's just an object.
[00:02:02] Okay? The things that we do are not objects on a shelf. We are selling services. Services are different than an item. Now when we think about it that way, we know as groomers, some dogs are a lot more work than other dogs. Every dog's gonna be a little bit different. Every BK is gonna be a little bit different.
[00:02:23] Maybe those owners brush every day and are very, very good about keeping that dog maintained and others are not. We understand when it's coat issues, but we need to take that into behavior issues. We need to take that information and pull it back. To behavior issues too. The dog, that's a lot more effort to groom because the dog is having trouble being groomed, and unfortunately, if we get stuck in the mindse

This week we're talking about science-based training. What does that mean? Why is there a controversy and what do you need to know? You'll get my take on that this week.
CreatingGreatGroomingDogs.com
Ep182 What Does Science Based Dog Training Mean 
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[00:00:00] Chrissy: . Episode 180 2 of the show this week we're talking about science-based training. What does that mean? Why is there a controversy and what do you need to know?
[00:00:09] You'll get my take on that this week. This is the Creating Great Grooming Dog Show. I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith. I'm a certified professional groomer, a certified behavior consultant for Canines, a certified professional dog trainer, the owner of Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire, and an instructor at Whole Pet Grooming Academy. And this, my friends and colleagues, is the show we're grooming and training meet.
[00:00:31] Science-based dog training. So there's a big debate out there because there are two warring factions in the dog training world. And each of them thinks that they're doing science-based dog training. And I'm gonna tell you, my humble opinion is that they are both correct. They both are.
[00:00:50] But it has become this marketing tool. So I want you to thoroughly understand it. I want you to understand why it's a term that's being used and what it really means. I will say that I am definitely further on one side of that debate. If you are kind of new to the show, you might not know, but there are, , balanced trainers, trainers who feel that rewards and punishments as long as it, we get the job done and safely, rewards and punishments are all fair game.
[00:01:20] And then there are the positive reinforcement trainers who think that punishments should be avoided. I'm far more leaning toward that side. But that doesn't mean that I'm not open-minded. , in fact, I am what's called a crossover trainer, which means that I started off with a lot of punishment based kind of training, and then over time started incorporating more positive reinforcement type training.
[00:01:44] So I've done both, and I can tell you that. There are plenty of wonderful caring dog trainers out there working in both angles. All right, so first of all, this is a safe space. My show is always gonna be a safe space. I'm not here to judge anybody, [00:02:00] but I wanna present you with some information. Now, when I say that I am far more leaning toward positive reinforcement, , a lot of the positive reinforcement camp, talks a lot about science-based dog training.
[00:02:13] And they do use a lot of science, but so does the balance trainer camp also. So the science part comes in because the purpose of us doing our training is to try to figure out, why the dog is having a problem. The why. Okay. This is where we break away from. , he does something and I just leash. Correct.
[00:02:38] A good trainer is not doing that. They don't just go. I don't know. He did something. So I'm just gonna do a leash correction and a stern no. , the science-based part is about separating ourselves from the emotions of punishments and rewards, separating ourselves from the emotions of all of that, and instead thinking about what do we see with this dog?
[00:03:00] Why is this dog behaving this way? Why is this happening? What can we do to help this dog be better? Now, that's a different point of view than what many of us were taught long ago when I first started. Back in the eighties, it was choke collars and prong collars. I was lucky enough to be around a bunch of adults cuz I was 14, um, to be around a bunch of adults who were super into continuing ed.
[00:03:27] So even though we were using a lot of those things, there was always this open-mindedness about like, woo, how did they do that? Wow, that's neat. How will that work? Can we try that too? But it's not just about taking every idea that comes down the pike, okay? There are some crazy ideas out there.
[00:03:44] There's some really outdated stuff.

Who does the teaching? That's an interesting question, isn't it? So if we have a dog that has trouble with grooming, that has some difficulty, is showing some behavior that we do not want, is it the groomer who does the training? Is it a trainer, a behavior consultant? Is it an owner? Let's talk about all of our options this week.
The full transcript!
[00:00:00] Chrissy: Episode 180 1. Who does the teaching? That's an interesting question, isn't it? So if we have a dog that has trouble with grooming, that has some difficulty, is showing some behavior that we do not want, is it the groomer who does the training? Is it a trainer, a behavior consultant? Is it an owner? Let's talk about all of our options this week.
[00:00:20] You're listening to the Creating Great Grooming Dog Show. I'm Chrissy Newmeyer Smith. I'm a master groomer behavior specialist. I'm a certified professional groomer, a certified behavior consultant for canines, a certified professional dog trainer and instructor at Whole Pet Grooming Academy, and the owner of Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire.
[00:00:37] And this my friends and colleagues, is the show where grooming and training. . So let's get into this a little bit today because I think that, , we all start wondering, well, where will this dog learn a new skill if it comes down to training? And I know some of you are kind of new to that idea that we can teach the dogs to be good for it.
[00:00:56] And I hear you. , it was not always what I thought either, but we can, we can teach them to be good for it. So who does? , so my quick answer is that I think it needs to be collaborative. I think that it's more than just one person who does that . I think that that's something that we need to do as a group.
[00:01:13] And what I mean by that is there is some stuff that the Grimmer is gonna need to do differently. , there's stuff that the owners should be sent home with also, and we often will have to work with a trainer or with somebody else in that dog's life also. Now, the reason. Let's get into just a little bit about why, , I hear groomers say things like, oh, but owners will just make it worse if they go home, they go home with the owner and the owner's gonna make it worse.
[00:01:42] And let me explain what's going on there because I hear you, I hear what you're saying, and I know that owners can definitely make it worse. But what a lot of non trainers don't realize is that dog training is all about talking to owners. Dog training's all about teaching people [00:02:00] and it's really a unique skillset.
[00:02:02] , it takes a long time to learn how to effectively teach people. And so what do you need to be able to teach people, ? You need to have them understand how to do something that's important. And it may seem really obvious, but think about how many of our owners have trouble brush. Even if they have the right tool, have trouble brushing, even if they have the right tool, and they have been shown a few times, they're still having trouble just brushing, which you would think, but you brush your own hair.
[00:02:32] How could that be hard? But it is. Okay. So our owners need to understand how to do a thing, and that's where dog trainers are very good at helping owners understand. Here's another part for owners owners need to understand why. Why does he need to know how to do this?
[00:02:52] Why is this gonna make a difference for this dog? Why is it gonna make a difference for them? Why, why are we even spending the time on it? Because if they don't understand why, then they might be stressing their dog out at home trying to just touch 'em with stuff. The classic example is the person who's been massaging his feet.
[00:03:13] Oh, I just know the, the trainer said we should touch his feet a lot. , and actually non groomers don't really understand the purpose of foot touching, which is why we get a lot of dogs who have a lot of behavior problems, even though people have been touching