GroomPod 464 transcript

GroomPod 464 Trigger stacking and Tea Tree oil

Susy Hello, groomers. You found the groom pod. Welcome to our virtual salon. My name is Suzy and I'm your host. I'm a mobile groomer from Seattle, Washington, and anybody who knows me will tell you I love to talk, especially about my job. And one of my favorite people to talk to is my friend and mentor and the co-star of the show, the curator of ingredients, Miss Barbara Berg.

Bbird Hey, what's up with you on this fine fall day?

Susy It is a fine fall day, and we're right at the precipice of the holiday season. We're right there. My schedule is crazy full of grooming. Although we have had a lot of loss lately, as I was telling you before we got on the show. But I've still got a lot of holiday grooming coming up. I know everybody else is ready for holiday grooming and we are here to talk about grooming. So welcome to episode four hundred sixty five of the Groom Pod, recorded on November ninth, twenty twenty five, in Snohomish, Washington and Greenville, South Carolina. This podcast is brought to you by our kind sponsors best shot show season precision sharp grew more and stasko. And if you guys would like to support us, which we really do appreciate that you can do so at our website, The Groom Podcast, where there's a donation button to go straight to Barbara. Since she's mostly the brains, I'm the brawn, she's the brains. Or you can join us on Patreon and support the show in a bigger way. This week on the Groom Pod, we're going to talk about understanding triggers stacking, which is a really important concept for us as groomers. And then Barbara is going to tell us about Tea Tree Oil this week. What's new is brought to you by Groomer Software. If you haven't found Groom Whore, you're missing out. Groomer is an all in one software solution for your grooming business. Whether you are a solo mobile groomer or manage several shops, groomer has everything you need twenty four hour online booking and forms routing, credit card processing, reminders, Google Calendar and QuickBooks integration, and so much more. And the best customer service anywhere shop, mobile or House call Groomer has you covered and they're giving us a free month. Just enter grooming twenty two in the coupon code. I have good news on the website content searching front. I tried to search for last week's episode. I tried a like a very brief, not well worded search and guess what? We popped right up. First entry in the search results was us. So I guess that copying your transcript and transcribing it and then pasting it and then having AI do all the writing makes it very AI friendly. So I still apologize. I can't go back and do all the four hundred and sixty plus episodes in the past. I can't go and redo those, so we'll just have to deal with it. I think if you go down four or five pages in the search, you'll eventually see the results for what's on the podcast. But it's so sad.

Bbird So I had an interesting, uh, week. Speaking of AI, yeah, I love my AI buddy. Uh, I spent about three evenings with AI working on an article that's. I'm not going to give away the details because I'm going to use this as a webinar. Working on an article. That's a clarification, a science based clarification of something. I ran into in groomer to groomer that I thought was not the truth. And that disturbs me almost more than not having information about something. Information that's wrong.

Susy Erroneous.

Bbird Erroneous. Erroneous and misguided. Just not on point. Not consistent with the science. So I turned to instead of just like trying to rant about it, I said, okay, let's see how AI approaches it, because you learn a lot about logical thinking when you work with AI. Is that not so.

Susy It's very true. And organization of any paper that you ever wanted to put out there, the organization, it's just stellar.

Bbird So I directed AI to search for this and search for that. And what about this and that? And we worked together. It was very much together, back and forth and back and forth. They are trained to keep you going and not finish until you get something that you can use. And so between the two of us, we really worked up an article clarifying this misunderstanding or misinformation, as I call it. And I think I'm going to do more of that. I think I'm going to go back and find things that pissed me off Or nudged me or just like, didn't sit well. And that I wondered whether I didn't believe that it was accurate. Well, this is the way to go back into the science to see if you can find something that clarifies it from the science point of view. That's what I'm doing these days, is trying to kind of clear up some messages that we have been given that I have felt were not on point and not consistent with the science. And I'm going to put a few of them three or more into a think about it webinar, because my friend and colleague Chris It wants to do another partnering uh, webinar.

Susy Cool.

Bbird Because it's really good to have two presenters in a day. So you have that changeup. That's that's good. So you're not listening all day long to one person and their point of view, but you get another person and they're teaching. So uh we're looking to doing something probably in um in January going to depend a little bit on my knee surgery, but I'm starting to put content together for another, uh, whack at it.

Susy That sounds good. I also want to encourage you to pick and choose another blog post and just go through and update, or put your date on the bottom so that I can post some of that old content onto our page so that it's searchable and findable, and I think it's searchable. Actually. Your blog stuff from the groom blog. Original groom blog posts came up before our podcast stuff did, so they're looking for the written word. They want the written word. That's how AI must search for things is by written word. So I think that, uh, that we can continue to recycle some of that stuff.

Bbird Okay, good. Sure.

Susy Normally I'm not a good gift giver. Just in general, I'm not a good gift giver. I'm not an outside thinker that way. But every once in a while, I like to remind my clients of how much I appreciate them. And I think I'm going to do gifts this year, and I'm trying to figure out what gifts to do, because the key here is I don't want it to be a craft chore for me because I don't have time. This is my craft at this point. Any time I would spend crafting is spent playing with the podcast or the website or manipulating that, or the horse or, you know, the parrot, really, those are the things I need to spend my time on, so I don't want to take on a chore. Plus, we're like three weeks, twenty one days out from that. What is that holiday? Oh yeah. Thanksgiving. So I really better get the horse on the road and moving up the street because time is running out. So I had some thoughts and I thought I'd kind of bounce off some of these ideas. I don't love it when you get a branded gift for Christmas, you know, like a keychain with my name and phone number on it, you know, that kind of thing. What do you think of that stuff? Yeah, I don't think that's really thoughtful enough.

Bbird That's not a gift. Really.

Susy Okay.

Bbird It's just a it's advertising. It's an advertising thing. It's not a bad thing. I mean, pens and and keychains and that are good. We always can use one and so on and so forth. And having your name in front of them.

Susy But I don't think that's the point of a Christmas appreciation gift.

Bbird But that's not the point of the Christmas appreciation is supposed to be a kind of clean and free thank you. Acknowledgement of the value of your relationship with them. You know.

Susy I don't mind if it has my name on it, but more as a signature, not as a banner. You know, I want it to be subtle. So I was looking at the letter openers that you used to split mats with. I've done those before. Yeah, those are helpful and useful and pretty safe. But there's a risk because if it doesn't have a pointy enough point on the part that goes into the mat, it's not very good to use. So I can't decide if I want to give a client that kind of a tool or not. I gave them away to other groomers from our groomers association many years ago, but I don't know if that's right either. Then there's the once again branded or not branded holiday hand lotion or lip balm. I can get both of those pretty cheap and all printed up and stuff, but I always think that such a personal choice thing, you know, there may be somebody in the household that will use the lip balm or the the hand lotion, but you know what? If it's not the flavor they like? Or what if it just ends up sitting in a drawer? I don't like that either. So I came up with this. I've done cookies and I've done dog toys because I oftentimes I would much rather give the animal the gift than the person. I'm better at that. I'm better at giving the animal the gift. But I was thinking this would be more for the people. I found little dog paw print keychain zipper pulls so you could use it either as a zipper pull or as a keychain, or you could put it on your dog's collar and it's just a little colorful, sparkly dog paw print. What about that? It doesn't have any branding on it.

Bbird It's kind of fun. Yeah.

Susy And then if they don't want it, it's a tiny little dog sized trinket. They can throw it away. I mean, I'll never know. But their kids, if they have kids, they'll play with it if they want to stick it on their little Shih tzu. That would work pretty well. I've got a lot of little dogs, not a lot of big dogs. So I think that's a better choice than any of that other crap I suggested. I don't want to do an ornament where I've got to put the name on it. I started out that way. I was going to put dog get a dog with a little kind of paw print attachment and then write the dog's name. But then I'm having to find a pen that works on the wood, and I'm having to keep it dry. And these are all things I don't want a chore. I just want to be nice and tell people I care about them. And I'm happy they're part of my group. What are some of the things you've done? I know it's been a long time. Neither one of us has given anything away for years.

Bbird Yeah, no, I stopped doing it.

Susy How about chocolate?

Bbird Well, chocolate is pretty universal.

Susy Okay, I might look at that, too.

Bbird And chocolate is special as long as you don't get just cheap shit.

Susy Right.

Bbird The other things that are good are, um.

Susy Mixes like treat mix, like snack mix.

Bbird Chex mix, or Trader Joe's always has a great mix for Christmas. It comes in a pretty big can. You could read package that.

Susy Yeah. Christmas bag.

Bbird You know, and little baggy things. Yeah.

Susy Okay. And then if they don't like it, it's just food. It can go in the garbage.

Bbird It can go in the garbage, or they can give it to the dog.

Susy Or the birds.

Bbird Especially if it's like checks or the birds. Yeah. Animals. Let's just say, um, edible gifts. Yeah.

Susy Maybe I'll do a people chocolate and a dogs cookies. Like two bags tied together with a little bow. Maybe I'll do that. Well, we'll find out because I'll have to figure it out really quickly.

Bbird Oh, so glad that I don't have to deal with that issue this year.

Susy I know.

Bbird Or last year.

Susy Yeah. Or the year before. Well, it's been like I said, it's been a long time since I've done anything for my people. Now my client base is so small that it's not as daunting.

Bbird It's more realistic. Yeah.

Susy Yeah. You guys, I've had a lot of loss. I've lost like six dogs in the last three weeks out of my regular monthly dogs, which is. That's a pretty big hit. I noticed, because I had a lot of time this week to think about it. I was not working. But yeah, alas, it's the cycle. For some reason. I have a cycle where I must have added people, and now those people that I added back then are dropping off and their dogs are dropping off, and and I'm going to have to decide whether to add some more or not.

Bbird Right. That's the next question. Are you going to add some more or are you going to keep a reduced schedule?

Susy Yeah, I think I'm going to tread water.

Bbird I think you should Because I think that an important part of groomers survival longevity is cutting back as you age, instead of pushing your body to do what it did for you at age thirty when you're sixty five.

Susy Yeah, I think you're right.

Bbird I think that, you know, like being more measured and careful about what you take on and putting yourself first. And I just remember when Christmas was like such a push and the challenge was, can you survive this? You know what broke me of doing that? Working long days and squeezing in dogs and not eating well and not resting well. Not having any fun. And, uh, I had a very, very, very special dog that died on Christmas Day.

Susy Oh, that'd do it.

Bbird I felt so bad because I had just pretty much ignored him. Um, well, not ignored him, but just, like, not observed him. Not noticed him, not interacted with. Next week we'll play next week, you know. And I can still cry over that. And, uh, he bled out. There wasn't anything we could do. It was just horrible. And the last thing that I remember is that I got a little. It was like Christmas Eve night. I just. I didn't even notice then that he was not well. I because I was deep into eggnog.

Susy Not the kind I drink, but the other kind.

Bbird Yeah, the real deal. Eggnog. I got a little drunk for Christmas Eve and woke up Christmas morning with this nightmare going on. And it broke my heart. This was a soul, buddy. And I ruined a lot of people's Christmas with that, because he had an enormous following of his own.

Susy Yeah. That's rough. Okay, now that we've harshed everybody's buzz.

Bbird So now that we've ruined everybody's buzz, let's just do that.

Susy Um, yes, I think you're right. I think that the idea will be if I don't go stir crazy pacing around the house to cut back a little bit and let my schedule go back to a reasonable three day a week, no, four day a week, three days off, four days. Working is what I want to do, and I just have never been able to keep to that. Maybe I'll try to keep to that, see if I've got enough people to keep that schedule going. And that's my goal, I think. Yeah. All right. Well, let's move on to our first appointment. But first, let's hear from our sponsors. Let me tell you about Best shots. Newest addition to the Ultramax Pro line. Ultramax hair hold is a flexible hairspray that can be layered on for a stronger hold. Ultramax hair hold spray is great, but my favorite new product is called the Max and I won't groom without it. It's a fragrance free ultra concentrate conditioner and detangler. It reduces drying time and handles undercoat and tangles like magic. Just a few drops in the final, rinse or spray it on and dry it in. Contact your favorite best shot distributor or learn more online at Best shot pet grooming success begins with best shot in your tub made from the best stuff on Earth. Ready groomers. Here comes our first appointment. Oh, as I was thinking about what to talk about this morning, I came across somebody talking about trigger stacking and I thought, well, that's a good thing to talk about. And I think that we all know the grooming environment is full of stress for the pets, for the dogs especially. And the idea that he bit me out of nowhere is usually just not the case. It's usually the last straw on a mountain of stress, and that's what we call trigger stacking. So there's many warning signs that the dogs use to tell us they're not okay with what we're doing. So what might some of those warning signs be? What do you look for? We're going to talk about that a little later. It is our job to look for the warning signs, and to read the messages, and to make it less stressful for them, because the goal is to quote our very favorite behavior person a calm, comfortable, and cooperative dog. But that's not going to happen without some sensitivity on our part. Let's talk about managing the stress on our tables so that we and the pets we care about remain happy and safe. They like to talk about trigger stacking in a stress bucket theory. Have you ever heard of the stress bucket theory?

Bbird No. Tell us.

Susy I will. Oh, there was a moment in time this morning, ladies and gentlemen, that we thought perhaps Barbara's internet was not going to work. And I thought I was going to have to do my portion alone. And I have learned that podcasting alone is not nearly as fun, nor is it as entertaining as podcasting with two people. So I kind of wrote this out just in case I was going to have to do this alone. But we'll have Barbara's input too. Every dog shows up with what we call some water in their stress bucket, right? You got a bucket. It's got a little bit of water in the bottom. And I remember we've talked about this before. Sometimes we don't know how much water is in that bucket. Like perhaps the ride to the grooming salon was very stressful. And the dog hates riding in the car with its human right. It's going to come in stressed right off the bat.

Bbird I've had dogs come in and they were matted and people said, well, he fell off the back seat on our way here.

Susy Well.

Bbird And it made it mattered. So that could happen?

Susy Yes. Uh, perhaps another dog barked at them.

Bbird Or they could be car sick, right?

Susy Maybe just leaving the house is stressful. Maybe the only time they ever leave the house is to go to the vet or the groomers, or maybe to grandma's house, and they don't know which one it's going to be. It's a mystery to them. So they start out with a little bit of water in their bucket and we don't know it. And then we start to do our thing, which is just more stressful to most of them. I mean, not every dog is a standard poodle who's like, been trained for eternity to be a good dog on the table. And I know there's exceptions to everything, but there's nothing more pleasant than working on a standard poodle that actually enjoys the grooming process and the interaction. But oftentimes that's not the case. Normal stuff to us, like the clippers and the nail trimmers and the brushes and all that. These are all stress inducing for the dogs. So they've got a little bit of stress in their bucket already. Then they come in and we turn the clippers on, or we put them in the bathtub and give them a bath, and we take out the dryer and we make all these noises and their smells, and there's people and there's stuff going on, and there's even memories from last visits, things that have happened to them before, and other grooming shops that they may have to deal with PTSD. That's right. Dogs get it too. They absolutely do. And each one of these, as we call insults, is a trigger. In other words, more water in that bucket. And it's getting more full and more full and more full. And eventually the bucket overflows and the meltdown happens. We're trying to avoid that. You don't ever want to get to meltdown, because then you're creating those PTSD moments that we were just talking about. We don't want to do that. We want them to at least like us when we're done. Right. If they don't like coming and they don't like the process when they're finished, we still want to be one of their people. I do. I mean, that's my goal is to be one of their people. I want to be their person. So if their human isn't there, I want them to turn around and say, hey, what do I do if something goes wrong?

Bbird I want to be there people too.

Susy Right.

Bbird And nobody had to teach me that. That was one of my main goals starting out. And the person that I learned to groom from who was a scissorhands, he didn't give a shit if the dogs liked him or not. And he had very little trouble on his table. But he was. He was spitting mean. I mean, he would correct them and rather aggressively, and I didn't like that little part of his lessons at all. You know what he once told me? That if I wasn't willing to smack a schnauzer, I'd never be a terrier groomer.

Susy Wow.

Bbird And he said, it's not so much that you will smack them, it's that they think that you're willing to go that extra depth. And I thought, I think that's a recipe for delayed aggressive behavior.

Susy I totally agree.

Bbird Those moments where you get a dog all the way through the process, and then the dog bites the groomer, well, hey, that's a statement.

Susy Yes it is.

Bbird Here's what I think about your nephew. Right.

Susy So let's just examine a dogs visit to the grooming shop. They get in the car, they may have that bad car ride. Dogs might have barked at them. Somebody pointed their finger. Whatever parents are, are bad drivers. Then they come in and there's potentially a lobby full of dogs and people and noise and smells, and then mom comes in and hands you off to somebody you don't know. So there you go. You get swept into the back. You might get put in a crate and left there for a little bit. You might not. You might just get swept right up and into the bathtub. Then the dryer comes out. Then you get put on the table. They put a little loopy thing around your neck, and they do stuff to you with noisy equipment. Even though you know what's coming, you may not know the order it's coming in, so that might be a little scary. Then the brushes come out and you start the brushing and then the dreaded nail trimmer. And by that time, your bucket is overflowing and you've sent all the signals and you bite the groomer. So that's how it happened. It's not just the nails. It was everything that came before it. Those are the triggers getting stacked. They can only take so much. Everybody's trigger stack is a little different though. Some people can take a lot more. Some pets can take a lot more. Others trigger really quickly. I live with one that triggers pretty fast. Sometimes you don't even have to do anything and it triggers the poor guy. That would be my husband, by the way. Not one of the pets.

Bbird Ha! I've got two problem groomers.

Susy Yeah, two problem puppies.

Bbird Sometimes I think maybe I should post. Maybe we should do this for the Facebook group. Post a video of me trying to groom Marco and let everybody make suggestions.

Susy We could do that. That would be fun.

Bbird That might be a fun thing that we would do only on the groom pod. You know where else? Which, you know, I'm. I'm really thinking it because I'm at my end, you know, I'm I'm at my absolute end. It's just like. So no fun. I mean, they're the only dogs I have that I can groom. And there's so many different things that you can do with a Maltese. I want to do those things. I want to make Marco's face look really cute. I want to comb out Little's legs. No, no, no we can't.

Susy That's a good impression of little. Very good.

Bbird Well, I have visited her mind often, you know, like, it's not that I don't have empathy or compassion or know know what they're doing, but they're just doing it. So maybe we'll do that. Susie.

Susy That would be fun.

Bbird So some dogs can stand a fuller bucket than others. I think we need to make that clear.

Susy Some buckets are the size of a teacup and other buckets of twenty five gallon. Yeah, there's quite a variation there. So we as the groomers and the people who are caring for these animals when they're with us. We have to look for the signs. And I like to call them the whispers of stress. And that's like the lip licking and the yawning and the whale eyes. When the whites of their eyes show and the turning their head away. Those are all like whispers of, hey, I'm not comfortable with what's going on. And when you get to the shouts, which are late stress signals, that's the growling, the snapping, the biting, the thrashing and the complete shutdown going limp, you know, just folding up into a little ball and turning away. And if you see the whispers the dog is desperately asking you for a break doesn't mean you can't do what you're doing. But the dog needs a break, and we need to be sensitive to that. And if you ignore the whispering, they're going to yell at you. And that's when the trouble begins. And that's where we set up those PTSD Things for later. For the for the next fifteen years, you're going to be grooming this dog or depending on whether where it is in its lifespan. And you've just set yourself up for failure by ignoring the dog's communication to you. So how can you reset a dog that's had a gazillion stress triggers? Well, I know with my horse, which is really where I've learned to apply this tremendously.

Bbird Where you have.

Susy Yeah. When the triggers start to stack, she takes a long time to decompress. She just doesn't decompress. Like five minutes later, she's wired for the whole rest of the ride. It may be another hour and she's on high alert the whole time. Other horses, like my friend Cheryl's horse, got stung by a bee, wigged out for about 30s and then just went up the trail like nothing had ever happened. So different personalities require a little bit different attention. But the most important thing is these are five steps you can use to kind of decelerate the overflow if you will stop the trigger, whatever it is you're doing that seems to have pushed the dog over the edge. Stop it. Just whatever it is. Put the clippers down, turn the dryer off, stop the bath, make the water cooler, do something different. Stop right then and there and if you need to, if the dog is really flipping out, like we all know, that happens occasionally, take the grooming loop off and either just hold it in your hand or release it entirely and get the dog on the ground. If they're really wigging off, create some space personal space for the dog. Step back a little bit. Look at your phone for a minute. You know, make it a clear message to the dog that you're not going to do anything for a little bit, and that he can take a moment and like, get a breath, for heaven's sakes. You got to allow the decompression. This is the step that most people miss. Yeah, you can stop what you're doing and step back and move on to something else. But unless you let the animal decompress, you're going to be right back with a full bucket in nothing flat. So let them shake it off. Let them sniff the air. Let them lay down for a minute. Let them look at something else. Give them a couple minutes at least. Really, to back off of that stress trigger. Sometimes it takes a long time. You might choose to reschedule. It might be in the dog's best interest to reschedule the rest of the groom. That's if they're really, really panicked and especially if they have health issues.

Bbird What I liked about having a stationary salon is that I had those crates and the crate for many, if not most, of the dogs other than Siberian huskies. The crate is the getaway place. They're safe there. There's a door between them and other dogs. The triggers are the part of the bucket. Drops might be loose dogs in the area because some of us have our own dogs. I always had my own dogs at work. Or let certain clients, maybe all the clients dogs, uh, have the floor and pillows and beds and that. So sometimes the dog on the table is either so distracted by that or threatened by that. They don't know how to stop any activity of the other dogs. Um, so that in itself can be a stressor, can be in the sight of other dogs. And I always when we had dogs that were clearly Only losing it or about to lose it. We would stop and we would put them in the crate for a few minutes. And that allowed us to go to something else. And then we would come back and open up the crate and ask the dog how it was doing. And if it leaked that and jumped and bit you on the neck, you knew.

Susy That's one way.

Bbird Not so good. Thank you.

Susy Yes. I always forget because I don't really have that option. I can just back away, but I don't have anywhere to put the dog so it can get a break.

Bbird Calming technique. Never worked with cats?

Susy No. They're different.

Bbird You put a cat up and that's it. They're done.

Susy I heard somebody describe it like a turkey timer. When that thing pops out, you better pull that turkey out of the oven. It's done. Yeah. I think that sometimes We get stressed along with them. So when they're wigging out, we're wigging out too. And even if it's just our energy and what we're putting out there, we're not helping the situation by continuing on. So take a step back. Put the I love that idea. Put the dog in the crate for a few minutes if you have the ability. For me, I can't really step away from my table. I'm right there, but I turn away. Give the dog a break. And then, uh, when the dog is sending some calming signals, I mean, they're not going to be calm because there's no way to escape the environment that they're in. Really, other than what you've done, I can at least get some relaxing signals, a little soft eye or some sniffing or some interaction and praise that calmness and then reassess. What was the trigger? What were you doing? How can you do it differently? How can you make it more comfortable for the dog's body? How can you make it more comfortable for the dog's mind? And then go about that. It may mean skipping the nails this time or something like that. But remember this if you do stop the groom, it's not a failure, right? It's not a failure. It's just an act of professionalism. It shows you prioritize the dog's emotional and physical safety over a perfect haircut. And that's what great groomers do. So there you go. That's trigger stacking. They do okay. Barbers falling asleep over there.

Bbird No, I'm not falling asleep at all. I'm just digesting and thinking about it. Good food for thought. Suzy, you did great. And here's a point related to the holidays. Sometimes things at home are really tense before the holidays. There can be arguments.

Susy House guests.

Bbird House guests. There can be unexplained excitement there. There can be all things. We don't know how the dogs are going to interpret them. It can get hard on the dog at home. So that dog that normally comes with practically nothing and its bucket might be almost at its end when it gets to you on the day before Christmas. Yes. Like.

Susy Very true.

Bbird Well, sure am glad I just scheduled a bath and brush for you today.

Susy Yep. Yeah, that's so true. Because we don't know what's going on at home.

Bbird No. And it's hard because we're we're going to be working on hypotheses or suppositions. Well, I think the dog this and that. It's really your interpretation. You're going to work off of your interpretation of the dog. First of all, you're either going to notice it or you're not going to notice it. Some groomers are more in tune and in touch with their dogs during grooming than others are. Others are listening more to the music or the podcast that they're playing or. Business going on and are not. And other people are like, right with the dog the whole time. In fact, some people talk to them too much. But yeah. So what do you think about talking to dogs too much?

Susy I think every dog is different. For some people, it relaxes you when the dentist talks to you, and other people just want the dentist to shut the f up and do their job. So I think you got to read the room. I think you really have to be sensitive to all the signs that the dog is sending you. And there are dogs, Like for instance, the cattle dog I was talking about last week, who would prefer me to just shut up and do my job and get me out of here? It's not like the dog doesn't like me. It's just that I'm not. His person really.

Bbird Doesn't like grooming. Like, let's not dilly dally around this.

Susy Yeah. I want to be back in the house. I want to be doing my thing. I want to be hurting my other brothers and sisters around. I don't want to be out here with you in this trailer. Getting clean. That's terrible. I like to be dirty. So I think you've got to read the dog. Good impression. Yeah, I do know that the dogs react differently to people and that people check in at different rates with the dog. So I may be listening to an audiobook, but I'm very tuned in to what's going on with the dog's experience, because that's the most important thing to me. I'm a dog groomer that specializes in behavior, so my focus, even if your dog is perfect, is going to be behavior. I'm going to be reading the body language. I'm going to be looking for signals of pain. I'm going to be always doing that because that's my specialty and that's my focus. I think some people work in high volume shops, and they get a lot of pressure to move the dogs through in a hurry, and they have a lot less time to check in with the dog. I'm a luxury service. I get to spend that time checking in with the dog. So if your dog needs it, it's pretty important to have somebody that's tuned in. If your dog doesn't really care, then any old place will be just fine for that dog. It doesn't need that special attention, but I do think it's important to not completely disregard the being that's on your table. And sometimes when you have to stop a grooming, people are a little worried about that conversation with the owner. So like, say something like this. AI helped me with this and I thought that was pretty good. Fluffy was a superstar for her bath and body, but I could tell the process was getting a little bit too stressful when we got to her feet. So for her safety and comfort, we decided to stop here for today. And if you say it that way, they know that you care about their pet, but then remember to offer a solution. So I would say we can do the nails next time. They weren't really too bad and we can let you know her off the bat. Or you can make an appointment and come in another week and we'll just do the nails and nothing else and give them an option, but make sure they know that it's for the dog's well-being that you're doing this. Like I said, that's what makes a good groomer. In my opinion, trigger stacking is a real thing. Listen to the whispers so you don't get any yelling match. And stopping the groom isn't failure, it's the mark of a true professional. There you go. Okay, let's hear from our sponsors again, and we'll be back with a little recap on tea tree oil.

Bbird Hey groomers, it's time to have some fun with fragrances. Show season will help the holidays happen with their crazy selection of holiday smells. Get several bottles of spray and let your clients choose. Fragrance sprays include Christmas Spice and Merry Cranberry, holiday Hug and Hot buttered rum. Sugar cookie and pumpkin spice come with their own matching shampoos. Pick up a bottle of Sparkle Spray for your party animals and some aromatherapy for your entryway. Show season has you covered. Make show season your holiday headquarters.

Susy The Groom Pad and Precision Sharp would like to invite you to check out the newest precise cut shear called blinks. Its patented design features a thumb ring that slides the length of the handle. For perfect ergonomic placement of your thumb, slide it, lock it into place, and get your best grooms on. Check it out at precision. Groomers, take your seats. It's time for B birds classroom. All right Barbara, tell us about T tree. Is it the same as Melaleuca I can never remember that.

Bbird Is it right.

Susy Okay.

Bbird Tree is the common name for Melaleuca alternifolia. You can say that.

Susy Melaleuca alternifolia.

Bbird Alternative alterna I don't know it's not an A it's an.

Susy All ternifolia.

Bbird All ternifolia.

Susy Okay good enough. Don't test me.

Bbird The best thing about pronunciation is just go for it.

Susy Okay.

Bbird Uh. Melaleuca alternifolia. But almost everybody calls it tea tree oil. And the truth and the fact is that full strength tea tree oil is very effective against bacteria, common bacteria and mold. You know, it's starting to show up more and more because people recognize it as a especially good thing. So I'm going to tell you that to some extent, it's becoming the next aloe vera.

Susy Oh, really?

Bbird Starting to show up way at the end at the bottom of the list. I spent some time recently looking into what percentage of dilution, what amount in the formula is effective for tea tree oil to be antimicrobial. Often, one of the things that you want to find out is the minimum level that's active and effective. And tea tree oil weighs in at one percent or greater.

Susy Preferably two percent of the total formula.

Bbird Yeah.

Susy Okay.

Bbird In the total formula this is for it to actually have any medicinal value. And the most common usage is this is up to date Percent. So that's one one hundredth of a percent and one tenth of a percent.

Susy So completely ineffective.

Bbird It's not being used and it may be up to one percent, but you really need to have more. To be consistently effective for a skin treatment to help a skin condition, like even dandruff or what dandruff shampoos for humans usually use five percent. And there's a bunch of studies that agreed that five percent was the efficacy line for Melaleuca for dandruff treatment for humans. So you got to think about that. Are you getting fairy dust or are you getting an actual active ingredient that's going to make a difference? If it's an active ingredient, it should be listed separately at the top of the ingredient list. Active ingredients is two percent tea tree oil, whatever, but you won't ever see that. So the other way to kind of tell is where it is in the lineup of the if it's next to last, it ain't doing shit. Period. And any shampoo that if it's after citric acid in it just it's probably not enough. You know, it needs to be up there in the first five or six ingredients to be having a difference.

Susy So is it an oil?

Bbird Yeah, it's an essential oil.

Susy If you were to put five percent into a product that would be a lot of oil in your product, wouldn't it?

Bbird It would be a substantial amount of oil.

Susy It seems to me it would be hard to keep that emulsified or our emulsified emulsifiers that fantastic that they could actually do it.

Bbird And they probably could find a way.

Susy Okay.

Bbird In order to answer that question of yours, I would have to further look into human dandruff shampoos utilizing tea tree oil and see what other ingredients they have. But where there's a will, there's a way. And this is just all part of the quote unquote natural movement. It's natural. It must be good. But tea tree oil is also established as toxic to dogs and cats when applied directly. Full concentration. Neat boy. I made a big mistake one time. I had a bird that had kind of a chronic foot problem. I thought I would, uh, put a dab of tea tree oil on his growth on his foot. Oh, man. That duck screamed and hollered for quite a while. And just. Boy, it really broke trust for us for a while. I'm lucky I didn't kill my bird.

Susy Yeah.

Bbird There's been instances with just a few drops with a cat have.

Susy Yeah. Never use it with cats.

Bbird Yeah, I wouldn't ever use it with cats. Their skin is too thin. It's not a good enough barrier because it's got stuff is going to just, like, go through that cat skin way faster than dog skin.

Susy I know that tea tree oil makes me wheeze.

Bbird Some people are allergic to tea tree oil, so we can suggest that probably some dogs are going to be sensitive. And the more you use tea tree oil in small amounts, the. There was a study that if you use tea tree oil over a period of time and very small amounts, the bacteria would become resistant. Yeah. So that's a recent science I'm going to say, you know, like in the twenty twenties, all of what I read recently is added on to my general knowledge of Melaleuca coming back twenty seventeen and like that. So be really careful of it. I would be rather skeptical of products. And you really want to see an ingredient list and just kind of at least get an idea of where in the lineup the tea tree oil is dropping or, you know, being placed basically.

Susy There sure is a lot of it out there.

Bbird And there's a lot of it because there's an extreme demand. Any one of these oils that, like, takes off radically to become well known and favored, it is there's such a demand on it that cheating is happening often, especially third world countries where it's being farmed and distilled. They can be adding other stuff that's not tea tree oil, that's cheaper and more available. That kind of ruins it, makes it much less effective. And you don't know in my experience and it's just my experience as an aromatherapist working with show season is that some of the big fragrance companies, big fragrance companies that are selling commercially to big companies. Company to company business, sometimes their oils are just not the highest quality.

Susy Interesting. I think that covers it. I think we'll be doing some more ingredient reviews as we go along, even though we've done them before. It it's worth revisiting some of the stuff, especially if Barbara has a blog post about it, because then I can put it up on the website. So we'll be revisiting some of that coming up in the future.

Bbird I want to know if you would like to critique me grooming one or both of my Maltese, not the Styling please. I am eighty five, but the handle.

Susy And they are difficult.

Bbird Yeah, because they are difficult and I love them deeply. We talk silly every day. They're my constant companions.

Susy They know Barbara's secrets.

Bbird Yeah. You'll never be alone.

Susy Yeah, yeah, I know that story for sure. All right, guys, we're gonna wrap it up right here. Thank you for listening to us. As always, if you have any suggestions for topics. You know, we've been doing this for a while, go ahead and put them up on the Facebook group, facebook.com, slash the pod and have a good week. Get ready for the holidays because they're going to hit us and be over with and nothing flat. That's it. Happy grooming. See you next time on the groom pod. Bye bye.

Bbird Take good care of yourself because I'm counting on you being there.