Once upon a time, a young girl went to grooming school, got her diploma, and walked out thinking she had been educated. It did not take long for her to realize that knowing how to copy a motion and understanding why you are doing it are not the same thing. There were instructions, there were demonstrations and there were people who could show you how to get through a groom. But where was the classroom? Where was the testing? Where was the structure? Where was the science? Where was the why? It felt like “school”, but it was not education. So she went to work, thinking maybe this is where it all comes together. Maybe this is where the education and learning happens, on the job. But instead, what she found, salon after salon, was something else entirely and that was groomers knew how to do the job and they could produce a result. But when she asked why, the answers, well they were never really any real answers.
“That’s just how I learned.”
“That’s how I was shown.”
“That’s what everyone does.”
“That is just how it is done.”
After a while, she started to grow frusterated as the sound of less knowledge and more repetition was the only answers being passed down as truth. We really do tend to hand out seniority like it is the same thing as being educated individual.
I have been grooming 10 years.
Why do I need to know that, I have never had an issue or had anything happen…..
I have been grooming 20 years.
I have been grooming 30+ years.
But what were those years made of? Repetition? Speed? Muscle memory? Good scissoring? Or actual study? Actual understanding? Actual education? Because those are not the same thing. At the grooming table or bathing a dog, in the middle of the work, the story really shows itself.
Can you explain why you use that product, that blade, that water temperature, that handling method, or were you just shown once and told to keep doing it?
Because “why do I need to know that” when a lot of what we call knowledge and “eduction” in this industry sounds like this:
Someone showed someone, who learned from someone, who heard it somewhere, who saw it in a social media group, who watched a video that looked right, and now it is fact.
AND BAM! That, my friends, is the story of grooming education. And it says quite a lot about how far behind the times we still are. That part, that never sat right with me, and obviously, it has not sat right with the professionals and team I now teach and work alongside either.
Every industry goes through growing pains to because a trade, a true profession, but ours still seems oddly attached to romanticizing the old days, as if nostalgia alone should count as progress. At some point, though, we really have to stop treating the past like it was the gold standard just because it is familiar. If this industry wants a future, it cannot keep trying to drive forward while staring in the rearview mirror.
This is physical, it is extremely emotional and we have a responsibility since we are working with living animals. We are making decisions that affect safety, comfort, and trust. And yet so much of the knowledge behind those decisions has been passed down without ever being questioned.
At some point, that young girl left the indsurty, because she needed answers that made sense. She stepped into a new space where questions had structure, where answers had backing, where “why” was not optional. And for a while, she stayed there. But life has a way of circling you back. When she came back to grooming, she expected something to have changed. More answers, better education and some evolution. Instead, she found the same story. The tools looked a bit newer. The conversations, disappointingly, still the same and underneath it, the same patterns were still there. Seminars that still showed how, but not answer the why. Seminar that still leaned on demonstration, and familar faces instead of understanding. An industry still measuring worth in years and numbers instead of knowledge. How many times do we need new videos on how to do a perfectly round face? The technique stays the same, the difference is the tools and at the end of the day, there is only so many ways you can do a round face.
That is why, when I stepped away from the industry, I set my sights on a school when I returned. I needed to find the why, teach the why, I needed to find the people who would face a system that feels a little too much like a tale as old as time, and not a reinvention or a kind of new version of those good old days. What I did not know then was that it would take over a decade for that school to grow into something I could not have imagined back then, something built with people and professional pet stylists who think, question, and challenge in the very same way I do for the saftey, the health and the wellness of the animals and the people who do the work. We needed a school that focus on the WHY, becasue there are so many who can teach the tenchique over and over again.
This is where the story breaks open, now the question is not about one person’s experience. It is about all of us.
- Why are we so focused on how long we have been doing the work instead of how much we understand it?
- Why is a number of years a badge of honor, but not the pursuit of real, formal solid science backed education?
- Why do we defend what we were taught instead of asking where and who it came from?
I am not here to dismiss anyone’s experience, because we do need that. It is the foundation this industry is built on. But now we need to ask what that experience was built on. Because when I keep hearing that the curriculum is “just fine,” I think that response deserves some scrutiny. Because if “fine” still produces professionals who can perform the motion but cannot explain the why, then fine is really not good enough. Doing something for a long time does not automatically make it right any more than repeating something for years makes it true, and performing a stylish haircut in a demanding job is not the same thing as understanding the science, the reasoning, and the responsibility underneath that stylish haircut. This is where the shift starts. Not with a number, not with more grooming or bathing speed, not with more volume in a day, not with “I did this once well and now I am an expert,” but with better questions.
Who taught you that?
Can you apply it in a way that protects the animal, not just the routine?
Where did that information come from?
Do you actually understand it?
Does it make sense for the animal in front of you?
The story of grooming education has been told the same way for a long time, passed from hand to hand, voice to voice, generation to generation. Maybe it is time we stop repeating it and start rewriting it. If this challenges you, good. We do not grow an industry by protecting every old idea from being questioned.
Take the quiz, see where your knowledge comes from and
Built around the expectations of Modern Grooming Professional Certification.
where it needs to go next.
