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FAQ's - Why I became a Pet Stylist
by Charmaine Bright
It was a toss up between
Hairdressing for humans or dogs. As a child I liked
platting and styling hair on any victim I could get my
hands on or my Barbie doll and I instinctively loved
animals. I would always bring the stray dog home and
couldn’t understand how adults could just drive by. I
helped nurse many injured birds back to health and
persuaded my parents to drive me to the vets with
injured wildlife that came across my path. My family's
dogs would come on holidays with us and we had cats,
goldfish, hermit crabs, axolotyls and the neighbors’
rabbits to contend with over the years.
One of my family dogs was Buffy, a
poodle cross from Hornsby pound who we took to be
groomed by Jenny Eade at Hornsby Heights. I had done
work experience at a Hairdressing Salon and ended up
volunteering time with Jenny to try out dog grooming.
This is where I fell in love with Standard Poodles.
In 1998 I started my own grooming
business I went with the thought of “do what you love
and the money will follow”. I haven’t looked back and
wouldn’t have any other job. If I win lotto, I’ll be
grooming at animal shelters instead.
I imagine that grooming to me is
like music to a dancer, it’s an obsession, a passion.
When grooming I am in my element, the world outside just
doesn’t exist. After grooming a dog several times you
get to know them better and they become my furry
friends. Truly, I have a friendship, a connection with
them. That’s why I‘d like to know when they are unwell
or if they have passed on to the rainbow bridge.
I take a lot of pride in making
dogs look and feel wonderful. I get a lot of
satisfaction from seeing them go home prancing and
giving full body wags knowing they are beautiful and
loved. I love it when the dogs drag their owners into
the salon and can’t wait to say hello and be pampered. I
see my role as trying to make the relationship between
the owner and their dog better, by making then fall in
love with them again by how they look and smell. Puppies
make me melt I can’t get enough of them –it’s an
addiction. Some owners are hard to please but I cherish
the compliments of my groom, the unexpected gifts and
cards of appreciation, the phone calls to thank me for
informing that their dog needs to see the vet and the
unexpected tips.
Yes there is the barking, noisy
dryers, defecating, vomiting, putrid smells, pussy ears
and wounds, fleas, ticks, caked on poop and eye sleep,
ingrown nails, anal gland discharge. I get hair
splintered in my skin, interwoven in my eyelashes, up my
nose and down my throat. I get scratched, licked,
sneezed on, threatened to be bitten, bitten, growled at,
drooled on and drowned in soapy water all with a smile
and all because of my love for animals.
I sometimes have to deal with a
client’s, pushiness, ingratitude and negligence of their
dogs. Some clients expect me to treat their dog well, as
they are paying for a service but fail to treat me well.
They underestimate how much skill, patience and
compassion is required with this exhausting, physically
hard job. I am a sensitive person and that’s why I can
relate so well to sensitive and shy dogs but I have
learned to toughen up to dealing with mean humans and I
just focus on the dog. My salon mostly attracts the
clientele that have a strong relationship with their dog
and they expect it of us too. Nothing could have
prepared me for the neglect I have seen in the past 7
years, gangrenous cocker spaniel ears, a seedling
growing in another dogs’ ear, extremely flea infested
coats and extremely felted coats that come off in one
piece for example. At one stage I almost lost faith in
the human race in how some dogs were treated. I don’t
know how animal welfare workers deal with it every day.
Vet nursing wasn’t for me either because of the surgery
aspect.
Stray dogs still always seem to
find me and I still try to reunite them with their
owners. I can’t help but pat every dog down to the skin
checking for matting, I always have dog hair on my
clothes, I live and breathe dogs and animals, my house
is full of stuffed dogs, porcelain poodles. Most gifts I
receive are dog or cat related. I miss my dogs deeply
when I’m away from them. I can’t walk past a pet shop
ever! I’m always in the pet section of the book store. I
know people by the dogs they have. Some people think I’m
crazy, over the top and have unbalanced values towards
animals. I say you have to be different to make a
difference.
Grooming, it’s a calling, it IS
personal, it IS ME !
Charmaine Bright
Australian Certified Master Groomer
As printed in Dogs NSW Magazine
August 2006
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