How do I teach dematting poodles type coats?

[jaeinn]

Our part time bather has been doing well with the exception of poodle type coats.

He doesnt seem to be able to spot mats while the dog is wet and he keeps making the same mistakes over and over. He gets the dog half dried and realizes it is matted.

Ok I know what you are thinking. Dont have him do poodle type coats. Well I need him to be able to handle everything. But I am becoming frustrated by this.

Any thoughts?

Jason

[baddog]

First teach your clients to get their dogs groomed more often...lol....don't you look over each dog prior to bathing?? That is a must in my shop, it protects you from false claims by customers(i.e. the customer tried to trim the ears and cut one). I generally don't allow bathers to dematt dogs, it's the groomers job, it takes skill and practice. I still cringe when I was visiting another salon and a bather was using a matt breaker in a poodle ears...yikes!

[Rubydog]

Maybe hand him a brush and a comb. With poodle type coats have him brush and run a comb through the dog before bathing.....maximum 5 minutes. If the comb is getting caught up on mats, bring the dog to you for further instruction.

[stacie-gotg]

This is easy. For every poodle and the like just have him use conditioner and brush the conditioner in then rinse well.

[sheilabgroomer]

Agreed!!

First teach your clients to get their dogs groomed more often...lol....don't you look over each dog prior to bathing?? That is a must in my shop, it protects you from false claims by customers(i.e. the customer tried to trim the ears and cut one). I generally don't allow bathers to dematt dogs, it's the groomers job, it takes skill and practice. I still cringe when I was visiting another salon and a bather was using a matt breaker in a poodle ears...yikes!

I don't let my bather dematt anything w/matts close to the skin IMO that is the experienced groomers job. Also, I don't dematt dogs that are overly matted, they either get cut short or the owner can dematt and bring them back (which never happens, they always get cut short...lol), it is to hard on the dogs IMO.

Now I did work w/a great bather when I was first learning and she could and would dematt ANYTHING. So far, the bathers I have had working for me have not shown that much appitude so I am cautious about it and do it myself.

[Poodlefluff]

I found the easiest way to teach was to wash the dog and then condition then rinse and towel dry once towel dried have him brush through with a slicker and a comb, don't start a dryer until he can get a comb through every where. I also like to use a mat breaker at this time too. Explain to him how it will SLICE open skin if he uses it any where that skin will fit through the blades, like arm pits, ears, flank area. rectum, genitalia, eyes nose and lips. I tell them it is only to get a large mat broken into smaller ones, if you don't feel comfortable letting him use this tool have him use double sided thinners until you trust him more. Those will only pinch the skin if he gets careless.

[HoundLover]

commenting from the bathers perspective...if its poodle type hair...sometimes as a bather you cannot SEE the matting until you start drying the dog. especially if its little nitty knots type of matting. you can seperate that hair all you want your not going to see it until you start drying the dog. this has happend to me working at the last place...this lady would bring in her cocker and schnoodle (looked like a poo to me) and the poo would always be in horrid shape. they never brushed the poor thing at home! well..this dog would ALWAYS have the little nitty knots. you cannot blame the bather for not noticing the matting if you havent checked the dog over yourself OR if you gave the okay after checking the dog over. i know many times where id be washing a golden (its not MY job to check for matts...thats the groomers job when they check in the dog) and id notice a couple of matts behind the ears...sometimes the dog was already wet (she didnt want to shave them out THEN because they were already wet...geez) but other times they were in the tub and i just decided to check anyways just to get it out beforehand..and mroe times than not they DID have matts behind the ears and had to be shaved out. now i was training to become a groomer...and she showed me the proper way to shave the matt out from behind the ears. so iknew how to do this...but dematting? was never shown and i wouldnt have done it anyways. if the dog needs to be dematted then thats your job to do so not mine. ill comb the dog beforehand to check for matts...but im not going to stand there and dematt the dog myself. and if i find matts then sure ill come to you and let you know the dog has excessive matting. many times ive started washing a dog and then lo and behold it has armpit matts or knots, or some matting in the tail etcetera. dont blame the bather because he cannot determine if a poodle has matts or not. hand him a comb and say with poodle type hair (ie poo,bichon or whatever) just run the comb through the dogs coat first and if you find any matts then come and let me know. not a tiny little matt thats just a hair knot that you can easily get out. a solid matt and you will then determine what to do with the dog then.
easy as that.
Hound

[katydid]

Demonstrate, explain, demonstrate again, trainee does it under supervision, explain, demonstrate, explain again. etc. until he gets it.

As a 33+ yr old school groomer I would expect any dog coming out of the bathing/drying station to be completely matt-free. After reading some of the reaponses. I have to wonder if things have changed that much in the salon world since I've been mobile???

[jaeinn]

How can you have a bather not doing dematting?

Groomers Job to demat? I dont agree. Groomers are for styling and trimming.

Bathers are for cleaning, drying and dematting.

Jason

[Pixie]

I have to agree with katydid and jaeinn. When I was a b/b I dematted. If I gave a groomer a dog with mats in it, it was handed back to me, I hadn't done my job. All the groomer did was rough in the dog and I took over from there. It was my job to brush and bath that dog, meaning if it had mats I dealt with it.

If the b/b's think they aren't suppose to be dematting what are they there for?????

[HoundLover]

basically the last two salons i worked for i just washed and dried the dogs. now i dont know about other salons...but having worked for two diffrent ones...thats what i did. wash the dog dry the dog hand dog off to groomer. thats it. i wasnt expected or even TOLD to do nails OR any brushing beforehand on the dogs! that was an EXTRA thing i learned to do...and believe me getting paid 4 dollars to bathe and dry a dog...i wasnt paid any extra to brush or clip nails or even do a bbt on a dog. when i worked for a petsomething i was told to bathe and dry the dogs. thats it. now once i was told to brush this collie..but thats about it because it was pretty slow and she was doing the other collie right then...but other than that i didnt brush any other dogs. just washed/dried.
i think if you are going to be expecting the bather to bathe/dry and brush out the dog then ya need to be specific enough about it. im sure some groomers have bathers doing nails,ears,pads,brushing,bathing,dematting,drying etc the dog...while some others only have the bather wash and dry the dog and thats it.
there really should be clarification among groomers about what a bather is expected to do.
Hound

[Dawn125]

When I was a bather I didn't hand the dog off to the groomer until it was completely brushed out. Of course we were paid hourly and not per dog so having to spend extra time on a matted dog wasn't an issue as far as pay was concerned. I'm not really sure what the problem is with the bather finding matting on the poodles when drying them. Would it be expected for the bather to have brushed out all matts before bathing? I would never spend time brushing out a dog before the bath. I would, however, use a dematting conditioner and brush out the dog with the conditioner on in the tub.

[SiotehCat]

I dont understand how one can bathe and dry a dog without any brushing. Maybe I just dont do things properly, but brushing is something that I do while drying on almost all dogs. I also dont feel like one has to be told to brush a dog, that should just be included. Kind of like shampooing and/or conditioning is included in the bath. And at petsomething, the bath package is called the "Bath and Brush". Its called that for a reason.

[Arrooh]

What an interesting topic

I know at the chain pet store the bathers had many bath only dogs and for sure had to get all mats out. I think though when I had a shop long ago with a bather, the groomer got the mats out, more for safety issues.

Okay, if Stephen happens to see this I wonder what so busy each with a type of job grooming shops did getting mats out, poodley or otherwise?