PetSmart Grooming Experience

[wolfsoul]

At the kennel where I work they take 4-5 hours. They take the dogs outside to go to the bathroom before and after, but 4 hours in front of a dryer sounds like too much for me personally. I use a shedding blade to dry Autumn as best I can and she's fully dry on her own after an hour. Pet dryers must be very slow.

Not all shops use cage dryers. We use high pressure dryers, and they are not hot. Most dogs will not take more than a half hour to dry this way. We only use a cage dryer if the dog was difficult for it's head or something and it couldn't be dried well, or if the face or ears are still damp.

[elizabethann]

I have a question for the groomers out there....

When you are grooming a dog (and you have multiple dogs waiting), are the dogs who are waiting supervised at all? I know they're probably in their kennels, but is someone in there with them? Is someone keeping an eye on them?

Because when I was waiting, the groomer said my dog wasn't dried yet. Well, he was out back (all by himself) for over 1.5 hours and all I could imagine was this hot blower on him and he was frying.

I emailed PetSmart but got no reply. I was calm, cool & collected in my email. That's no way to run a business so I'll be sending a letter to the President (if I can find that info somewhere).

Thanks for all the responses.

[Jessika]

Because when I was waiting, the groomer said my dog wasn't dried yet. Well, he was out back (all by himself) for over 1.5 hours and all I could imagine was this hot blower on him and he was frying.

To my knowledge, the cage dryers are NOT heated at all. I used to help out in grooming when I worked at PetCo, and all the cage dryers were just like fans blowing on the dogs, not heated at all.

[wolfsoul]

I have a question for the groomers out there....

When you are grooming a dog (and you have multiple dogs waiting), are the dogs who are waiting supervised at all? I know they're probably in their kennels, but is someone in there with them? Is someone keeping an eye on them?

In our shop, we never have someone sitting and watching the dogs, really, but they are always in sight so if something goes wrong we would know.

At our shop, we have people grooming, people bathing, and people drying all at the same time. If a groomer is grooming their dog, their next couple of dogs should be dry and either sitting in a dryer (if they were still damp) or in a kennel out front (where there are several people).

[Ginger's Mom]

Three hours does not sound too terribly bad to me. Although for the first visit it may be. My experience at all of the grooming salons I have been to (both private and mass market) has been pretty much the same. First, they may not be sitting around waiting for you to bring your dog in, so there may be a little wait until it is his turn (they were answering questions for other customers, someone brought their dog in for a quick nail clip, some dog was a bit harder than expected, any number of valid reasons). Second, it takes me an hour to bathe and blow-dry brush out my dog myself, I am asking them to also trim her hair and cut her nails, so it may take them a bit longer. Third, the more often you take your dog their and the more comfortable they become with him/her, the longer it takes to get him/her back. My theory with that is that they take the more difficult or unknown dogs first, and leave the easier ones for later when they don't have as much energy to deal with a dog that may be difficult.