Hi there, welcome to PT.

I am a pet groomer -- let me tell you, it's definatly hard work. When you're drying, hair goes EVERYWHERE. You are literally picking hair out of your eyes, mouth, and nose every few seconds. When you go home, you pull hair out of your clothes, and you'll wake up in the morning with a clump of hair in your mouth. when you blow your nose, chunks of hair will come out. It's not a good job for wearing makeup because the hair just sticks to it. Hair literally entwines itself into the fabric of your clothes and is stuck there forever -- a groomer I work with noticed that she has hair entwined in the skin of her hands that will stay there forever. In other words TONS and TONS of hair. Lol. It's also very hard on your back. You have to bend over to bathe, and sometimes dry (I mostly sit when I dry) and you stand alot of the time you groom as well (I like to sit when I groom, but it's not always possible). Obviously there is a large bite factor -- my advice is to know dog behaviour well and understand what is going through a dog's head. Also get to know your breeds -- I've noticed a very strong connection between breeds and biting -- some breeds just don't tolerate grooming or handling well, even when raised with it. You can't care about being a mess. Just yesterday I was holding a dog and it peed all over me. Not a pleasant experience lol. You'll be cleaning up lots of pee, and poop, and you guessed it --- hair. Remember that it isn't always about hanging out with dogs. Things have to go by so quickly that you barely have time to pet the dog -- it's get the dog, groom the dog, give the dog back. It's a very rushed environment.

The best piece of advice I can give you is to call around and see who accepts volunteers, or if you are at school age, see if anyone accepts work experience workers. I was very lucky to be hired after doing work experience at a grooming parlour.

It's tough, but I love my job. It's something I wanted to do, I feel like I'm doing something, I enjoy being around dogs even if I don't get to play with them, and most of all I love the people I work with. I feel that I've made very valuable and permanant friends. We do stuff together, I'm moving in with one of my co-workers, and just today my boss and a co-worker and I all went to a huge agility comp. MY boss even drives me to and from work everyday. It's like a big family. Of course, not all shops are like that...But hopefully you are lucky. Good luck.