any professional dog groomers????

Hey, I just joined the site this week. Is anyone having any know how with the dog grooming industry?????It takes a long time to build skills...sometimes I get frustrated. I haven't had surgery and wanting it bad. I am unemployed too.

Hi Heather, I am a professional groomer, however I work out of my home and do grooming part - time. I have a full time job in the telephony industry that I've been with for 17 years. I find dog grooming extremely fulfilling, I have 4 dogs of my own, a pomerania, 2 ****ers and a pug. I would suggest you take a class, its not difficult however, you need to be trained. Sometimes, Petsmart, or one of the larger stores offer classes, you might start their. I took a course through Thompson Education Direct, they do have a payment plan. You can find them on the internet You will need dogs to work on while your learning, you might try the city pound or try offering some friends free services while you learn. I have about 2000 invested in equipment and supplies at my shop. this is very minimal, you will need cages, table, clippers , blades, different shampoos, a bathing facility, a dryer, brushes, combs, rakes ets... Their are also schools which have courses 8-5 they are quite expensive, around 5000.00 for a full course. Look under dog grooming on the internet. In my city, a standard breed 30 lb dog gets about 35.00 for a full groom. It takes alot of dogs to pay for the equipment. I got into this because of my own dogs . When you have 4 it's cheaper to do it yourself, so I invested in the best supplies I could afford and took a class to help me groom my animals. I only recently decided to open up publically, and I don't advertise, because I want to keep my shop small. Good luck with your goals.

Hi Heather, I learned about grooming years ago (my brother was a professional groomer). I now have a 7 year old schnauzer (Murphy) and I just adopted a second dog Lucy (she is 8) she is a Lhasa Apso. I have always groomed Murphy myself (I save a bundle that way), I have had Lucy since Thanksgiving and her hair is growing very long. I am going to keep her hair clipped in what they call a puppy cut (that's where the hair is kind of short all over). I enjoy grooming Murphy, he looks so cute when I'm done, I think he knows he looks good after he's groomed too. Grooming is not very difficult, but you do need instruction in order to have a good end result. Years ago I worked in a grooming salon on the weekends and it was quite profitable, but you do need to have an initial outlay of money for blades, brushes and all of the other equipment needed to completely groom a dog or cat. But, once you purchase the equipment if you take good care of it it will last for years. It's really fun.