Yesterday I had my first biter. Well actually it was the first biter to actually make contact. Most biters are just trying to scare you. They take a little snap at you, aiming to miss, letting you know that they mean business. Obviously a dog as small as a shih tzu wouldn't be stupid enough to deliberately take a bite out of me, right? :-)
This particular one didn't like people messing with its ears. There's nothing too unusual about that. There are a lot of dogs out there that don't like people messing with their ears. So, there I am, trying to clean out his ears and he takes a shot and catches my thumb. Then he looks up at me trying to be all tough and I hold my hand out in front of him and say, "Well go ahead, bite it again. Go on, do it!" So naturally he did.
He looked pretty confused by all of this and the second bite wasn't nearly as hard as the first one (which wasn't very hard when you get right down to it). He had a look on his face like he regretted biting as soon as his mouth pulled away. I just looked down at him and waited until he was done and went on with the wash.
He didn't make any attempt to bite me after that :-)
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I got my first, official customer this morning. I'm going to be the exclusive washer of her dog, Lady.
She came into the salon yesterday asking about getting her dog washed. She'd called a few other places and they wanted to keep the dog for 6 hours. That's way too long. 6 hours is a full work shift in most salons. It shouldn't ever take you that long to get a dog washed.
Anyway, she came to our place and asked about it. Of course, we always try to get the dogs done and out as soon as possible. Better for the dog, better for us, better for the dog's owners. Everyone wins. The woman asked what day of the week would be best to get a fast turn-around and she was told that Sunday is usually one of our slower days but during the week it's not too bad either. She made an appointment for first thing Sunday morning which is the start of my shift.
The woman comes in with this REALLY sweet golden retriever. Very well-behaved, very nice dog. It was the first time the two of them were going to be apart for any real length of time so both dog and owner were a little nervous at first. But me, well I love dogs so Lady took to me right away and I took very good care of her. Had her cleaned, dried and brushed in under an hour (which isn't really that big of a deal because there weren't any other dogs in so she got my full attention).
The woman came back from her breakfast (she was meeting family for breakfast) a few hours later and Lady was waiting for her. She was SO happy (both of them). Well the woman decided that since Lady was happy and I did such a good job with her that she would always bring Lady in when I was working. Asked for my hours and everything and I was happy to give them to her. I'll be seeing more of Lady down the line. I'm her official bather :-)
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You might not think there are many fringe benefits to being a dog washer and for the most part you'd be right. I come home at the end of a shift covered in dog hair, usually wet and sometimes smelling like dog pee. But there is one cool thing that we get. We get free dog washes (provided we do them ourselves). Oh, I know what you're thinking, that's not much of a benefit, but just hang on a minute and let me explain.
I had CC bring in our two dogs this afternoon so I could give them a good bath. Here's where the benefits start adding up. First off, I get to use the big tubs. The simple fact that I'm washing in a big tub and NOT in my bathtub at home is a HUGE benefit. To clean up the big tubs at work, you just hose them down really, then collect the hair. At home you can't just hose off the bathroom right?
Second benefit, I get to use any of the shampoos and stuff. So rather than the cheap stuff that we use for a basic wash, my dogs can get the ultra-luxurious milk bath or the hardcore flea and tick bath or, in our case, the very-good-for-their-skin medicated bath. The medicated bath cuts down on pet dander. It doesn't smell all that great but I also get to use the conditioner, which DOES smell great.
What was pretty funny was using the big blow dryer on my dogs. They've both got pretty long fur so if you're from the South you know what happens to long hair under a blow dryer: you get BIG HAIR! If you're a dog, you get all poofy! They were pretty cute actually, all fluffed up. I didn't leave them that way for long though. Put them both in the dryer so when CC took them home they were mostly dry already. She brushed them out here at the apartment. I'd have done that at work too but we had a bit of a rush. I went to lunch and while I was out we had 3 more dogs as walk-ins.
So now I've got two very soft, very good-smelling, clean doggies and I didn't have to pay anything for it. Is that a big deal? Actually, yes. If I'd gone into the salon as a regular customer bringing in these two dogs for the works (which is what they got) it would have cost around 90 dollars.
See what I mean about it being a fringe benefit? :-)
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1 comment:
hahahah I can imagine how your dogs looked like-- all PUFFY! thanks for the laugh!
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