I had been blogging pretty regularly at disparateinterests.wordpress.com (in fact, for over five years), but I think that many readers felt my interests were too disparate. I sell the George Peter Murdock ethnic map of Africa (I am an Africa area studies major....part of a long story...), I have a history of progressive (heck, leftist ) politics. By an odd twist of fate (isn't that what life is...it happens when you are out making other plans?) I have a Master's degree in urban planning and policy...with a concentration in land use. I owe that to my love of animals. I got an assistantship to graduate school (University of Illinois Center for Urban Economic Development) partly because of my participation in founding one of the first community based recycling centers in the USA (Uptown Recycling Center in Chicago, in 1984), and because of my experiences with microbusiness . Microbusinesses are business that gross under $500,000 a year. That would be virtually all dog grooming businesses.
I want to address that, because I want dog owners to understand that businesses and industries change. Just like there are no more video stores...a niche that emerged in the late 1980s and were pretty much gone by 2010 with the advent of netflix and online streaming, the pet grooming industry emerged during the 1960s, when the US economy was good (for white folks, that is), and land rents were relatively low (as compared to income), and people considering a pet could afford to by the non-shed Poodle.
When I learned to groom dogs in the early 1970s, virtually every dog that came into a grooming business was a Poodle. Yes, we'd see Miniature Schnauzers and Cockers, but at the time, Shih Tzu were not an AKC breed, nor were Bichon Frise, and owners of just about every other breed needing professional grooming went back to the breeders of the dogs to have them groomed. Yes... I can say with statistical certainty that every dog grooming shop back then was owned by a hobby breeder showing dogs, who bred her own business. In fact, they trained their kids to groom, so I went to a recently emerged dog grooming school, the New York School of Dog Grooming, then owned by Mario and Margaret Migliorini, and run by Don Doessel in Chicago, to learn how to groom dogs.
Don Doessel was an excellent teacher, but it was really because we groomed all day, every day, 4 days a week, that I picked up the skills to groom. Then, later, I was able to apprentice with some phenomenal women who were either self taught, or taught by their mothers or kennel club members: we were taught how to brush, dry, scissor, and style the various breeds.
That was then. The last century. Everything has changed drasticly. Puppy mills emerged. That is, people breeding pets as livestock, because the AKC claimed the hobby breeders could not keep up with the demand for puppies. The AKC banked on their reputation for integrity, and they have destroyed it. People who may or may not have had an interest in 'the fancy' (what people interested in purebred dogs are called) started dog grooming schools. For profit schools, where, talent or true interest in dogs or not, if you attended a certain number of hours, you got a certificate that stated you were/are a dog groomer.
Pet shop chains emerged as business models----like grocery stores---based on volume. Some started their own schools. Their clientele are more concerned about price than quality of the groom or integrity. In addition, because our capitalist economy is based on inflation, land rents and energy costs were bid up by the powers that be.
Now, most dogs groomers see are what are called 'designer dogs': mixed breed dogs, bred as livestock, for the market, with no regard to genetic soundness or health. People are paying more for them than thy would for a show quality, genetically sound purebred. Why? Seems veterinarians have led people to believe that ---due to genetic mixing, they are statistically healthier than purebreds. This is laughable. When you breed one unsound dog to another unsound dog, no matter the breeds---they are the same species---and you get mixed breed dogs with eyelid entropy, juvenile cataracts, and luxated patellas. So few veterinarians are dog fanciers, and they seem to assume that because they have 'terminal degrees' thy know something to be true...when it is not. In any case, many, if not most of these designer dogs have coats that are impossible to manage if they get to be over an inch long. They weren't bred to perform a certain task, or be a certain way. They were bred to make money for the breeder. That's one fact that people seeking a dog, and thinking breed doesn't really make a difference, should consider. Just because most groomers don't have Ph.D.s doesn't mean we don't know what's real . This is indigenous knowledge: stuff you learn from other, more experienced people.
This is what I hope to address in future blogs.
Let's stop telling people to brush their dogs every day
Several things cause shedding. Like yur eyebrow hair, the short coat grows only so ong, and then falls out, & this is why getting the dog into a shed cycle is important. But sunlight also causes shedding (dogs process sunlight through their eyes), so dog s shed more when the wether is warm & there is more sunlight. They also shed when excited. this is called 'flight shedding'.
Cutting the coat will not make the dog shed less. The hairs will just b shorter...& in double coate breeds, cutting the hair may cause clipper alopoecia.
