We recently took our dog Millie here. Our dear groomer moved out of town to be closer to family due to health reasons.
I can't tell you what a relief it was to find a groomer that was willing to go the extra mile with dear Millie.
You see, we adopted Millie a year ago. She came to us as a three year old shut down traumatized puppymill mama. Everything scares her.
She's come a long way in the past year but grooming is still very scary for her. We give her anti-anxiety meds every day as well as two additional meds when she goes to the groomer, but, I know grooming her is a challenge. It's nothing like grooming our dear Howard, who is an easy going Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
Last year we took Millie to another grooming shop, twice. To be fair, I know they tried. I think the trouble is that it was too crazy there. There were too many groomers, too many dogs running around, and too much noise. With so much going on I think it would have been impossible to make enough accomodations for her.
Because of those bad experiences we tried grooming her ourselves. It was not ideal - no grooming table, no nice grooming tubs, etc. We had to groom her in stages because we were so slow and she was so scared.
I suspected that Millie would do just fine if the circumstances were right. She'd had a full year of learning that the world is not a bad place. We decided to give it another whirl.
Millie prefers men to women, and, lucky for her, there is a male groomer at Riverside. (We think she may have been cared for and mistreated by women at the puppymill.)
Riverside is a slower paced shop with only a few groomers, a lot less dogs, and a LOT less noise and pandemonium.
Millie's groomer told us that she was very scared of the dryer and that next time he will clip her before giving her a bath so that he can let her dry with fans instead of the noisy blow dryer. He told us to let the scheduler know ahead of time so they give her more time.
I'm sorry I don't remember your name but if you are reading this thank you so much for taking such good care of Millie and investing in finding a way to help her be less scared. When a dog like Millie is adopted it's a challenge to help them live a normal life without further traumatization. I think you were sent by God for dear Millie. read more