GroomPod 469 Chris Sertzel Pearson and her new CCE magazine transcript

The GroomPod 469 Chris Sertzel about her new CCE magazine- January 20, 2026

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, Suzy. Oh, I'm so excited for our time today, and I can't wait to get into it with our next guest.

Susy It's pretty exciting. Welcome to episode four hundred sixty nine of The Groom Pod. It's being recorded on December twenty eighth. And this whole show, the whole deal. The big rigmarole is made possible through the support of our sponsors Best Shot Show Season, Precision Sharp Groomer and Stasko. And if you'd like to support the show, you can do so at our website. The groom. Com. What's new this week is brought to you by Grumman Software.

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Bbird Yes, that is a delightful.

Susy Isn't that silly? It was so much fun. Thank you. AI.

Bbird I just love that we're. That. We're just, like, changing up our commercials and everything so that we can have a little bit more fun. And so that our listeners won't just tune out to our sponsors. Hello, sponsors.

Susy Did you know that Status Quo has come out with a couple of new products? First, there's the Status Quo Oatmeal Protein conditioner. This conditioner provides exceptional body and manageability and super shiny finishes. And it has a wonderful apple scent that I love. Great in the recirculator too. And they have a new matching protein conditioning, spray de matting, Antistatic, conditioning and finishing all in one, just like the original spray, but with that delicious apple fragrance. Look for these new products at trade shows and your favorite distributors like Cascade Grooming Supplies. Today on the podcast, Barbara and I are sitting down with a dear friend and brilliant educator, Christine Pearson. Christine is launching something the industry has been craving, and I know Barbara has been craving it as well. And me too. It's a monthly magazine that bridges the gap between the grooming table and skin science. Whether it's her deep dives or the CCE toolbox recipes, or even a mindful moment for the stylist. This publication is set to be an essential resource for the CCE community and beyond. Christine, we've been dying to hear more about it, especially me, because I know nothing about this, so I'm really excited to learn about it. Caring for the Canine coat. Christine. Pearsall. Where did I. All right.

Chris Hey, man. Whatever.

Susy I just put both. Put both.

Bbird Names together. Personal or.

Susy Not? Christine. Christine Pearson, welcome to the groom pod.

Chris Welcome. Thank you for. Well, not welcome. Thanks for having me. See, we're all over the map today, aren't we?

Susy Oh, yeah.

Chris You know what, I love it, I love it.

Bbird So, Chris, tell us how how this came about. Have you been thinking about this for a long time? Or because you just dumped it on us, like, all of a sudden out of nowhere? Here's a new magazine.

Chris Well, I think it has to do with me realizing that I could do this pretty easily thanks to a design platform that I have through my phone, and knowing that I could put together an E! Magazine, a digital magazine as easy as what this will be to plug and play, you know, to put in all the articles and the photos that just made it more.

Bbird Doable.

Chris More of a possibility. Like, yeah, like, I think we need ongoing reminders and ongoing new information as it becomes available to stay abreast of stuff within the industry and outside the industry, also within the veterinarian medical field. We need to have that on our radar, too. So this was a way to get that to happen on a continual basis, to revisit things, get things up to date, and we have an amazing amount of knowledge in our CCE network. And I wanted those groomers to have an opportunity. Like I've had to talk and write, and if they were interested in it, to get themselves out there to self-promote. Because, you know, bird and I'm learning the hard way. If you're at your table grooming all day and that's all you do, you don't have a good portfolio for career development. As you get older and your body starts to break down, and a lot of these groomers have so much to share. I just wanted to be able to, you know, give them that that opportunity to be involved and to make this kind of a community networking project for anyone that that might want to be interested. And we have, you know, we have our small group of industry educators that are specifically in such a niche area of our work in terms of science based education and caring for pets on a dermatological level. I think it's foundational, though, you know, like it should be industry wide, that there's just as a lot more of this information out there for everyone. So I was just trying to advocate, facilitate, you know, that kind of thing.

Bbird I think it's great to have some new voices. Some more voices, um, because our industry is limited to, like, groomer to groomer, that we used to have more magazines. We had Pet Age, which, yeah, I wrote for, which was a really an excellent source. And we we lost that. And we've kind of trickled down to just the one. And oftentimes it's, um, vendors who are writing and there's certain bias and limitations that happen with that, you know? So I'm I'm just like really excited to see it kind of open up and welcome new voices. And and another thing for groomers to read and learn from and maybe attract more people to the sea way.

Chris Yes, yes. That's you know, I think both of us have worked in a more mindful way for a really long time, like looking at behavior and training in different issues with skin and coat. I mean, once it's on your radar and a groomer has that curiosity, it's really important to feed that curiosity because that just like empathy, when you when you work from a mindful level, you know, you're you're thinking about the entire pet, its experience, each time it's with you. There needs to be more supportive material and education, uh, available for groomers that are thinking about big picture stuff. And the cool thing with this digital magazine is that you can insert hyperlinks and have, um, live video excerpts you can put in blog post links, groom pod links. I mean, so those can all be contained within the body of this magazine on a digital level, and it's got a low eco footprint because it's digital. So I've had people ask, is it going to be hard copy? I don't know. I mean, that's a long way off. I don't even want to have a whole lot of ads right now. I want it to be educational.

Susy So is it going to be available to anyone who wants to subscribe? Is it. What's it going to cost? Do we know those details?

Chris Yep. For now, it's going to be available to the people who are involved in the CCE program. And then I'll eventually open it up for subscriptions. We just have to get a couple of subscriptions in so that I am aware of the, um, like the work and how to actually do it. Get that all smooth and then I can open it up for subscription and it'll be an industry wide availability then. Yep.

Susy Cool. And a monthly.

Chris Yep. Monthly. I'm going to have work work my work cut out for me.

Bbird So I worry about you because I know I know you so well. and you do tend to heap that old plate in just right and and then go crazy.

Chris Yeah, yeah. No I have a, I have a problem with portion control for sure on many levels. But this is you know, it's one of those kind of legacy like passion projects that will just add to our effect throughout the industry that it's I think it's necessary. So it's taken center stage, and I anticipate that it's going to need to stay there, because the way I'm doing this is that I want accountability by involving other people. So if I know other people are really relying on me for a project to come through, and it's not just something I have privately that I'm going to complete, it gives me that level of accountability to stay on task and not take on too much. And the fact that I'm not Writing a whole magazine by myself. I'm, you know, we're outsourcing so much of the contributions, so I think that'll help a lot, too.

Bbird Yeah. So what kinds of articles might we expect?

Chris Um, we're working on an ongoing submission column dedicated for your your, uh, investigation into ingredients. And we'll be looking at a lot of science based information. I've asked everyone who contributed articles to always provide additional sourcing links so that groomers can kind of investigate those things on the on their own. And we'll be doing a salon highlights panel where we'll be highlighting individual groomers who want to share how they have their salon or their workspace set up to help with their dermatological support. Um, in the grooming visit, there's a lot of different things. It's all within that that private Facebook group. But we we want to have this be a science based blended with how do I want to say experiential?

Bbird Experiential? Yes. Yeah.

Chris Anecdotal advice does need to hold a certain. There's a certain space for that. Yes, absolutely. So that'll be involved. Um, or throughout the the process of the magazine. Also, I have a lot of, of articles specific to the CCE book that will be broken down into smaller digestible bits because some of that is really material heavy, and it can be hard to just read it once. And the, you know, the retention can be a little poor, if you will. So we'll I'll be redoing that. And then all of the, the authors are just open really to write on whatever they feel curious about or whatever is front and center for them by the month. And, um, I don't know exactly what people are going to write on. I know, um, Michelle Knowles had talked about contributing an article based on how to research and find sourcing like effective researching for groomers who you know are interested in the science behind what we're doing. Um, I'd asked Barb Hoover to get involved. Mia, overdose. Um, there's actually a good list of, I think twelve of us so far that have all said, yep, I'm on board. And, you know, it's also going to be like I told them, I want to highlight whatever you're doing as far as writing, whether it's a blog or if you have a book you know that's available, there will be self promotion throughout so that groomers can take that magazine and actually find even more ways to connect with, um, resources and educational information.

Bbird We can plug the groom pod there.

Chris You can. Yes. Yep. The only thing I'm trying to stay away from right now is branded like market like ads. I don't want to have any ads in there yet because they. I understand why they dominate, You know, a written periodical, like, there's productions, uh, expenses and whatnot. But with this being digital, I really want it to be an educational periodical for the industry as a whole.

Bbird Yeah, there's a freedom. A freedom to that.

Chris Yes. It can be a tricky, a tricky, slippery slope once you start talking specifically about, you know, brands or equipment and things like that. Um, and there's so many ways, right, to get any one thing done in our job. So it's important to keep that open and, uh, a free distribution of information without having to get pigeonholed into a brand specific or an equipment specific type of stance, I guess, or or opinion.

Susy Are you going to pay these people? I'm curious.

Chris So. So as of now? Nope. It's voluntary in exchange for their self promotion. Like they have the opportunity to get the word out there for whatever other educational material that they're providing in order to self promote that way. But I don't know if you guys remember, we had an industry, a Pet Industry Educator award program that I did a few years ago, and I would like to bring that back in and have an awards ceremony, if you will, a formal ceremony like we had had before. And that would be another way to for these groomers to contribute as authors and really get the word out about their writing careers. And I think I'm hoping to that groomers will use it kind of as a springboard. So if we bring back the awards program, there will be costs incurred with that, because I paid out of pocket for that the other three years that we did it and it got to be quite costly. So there will be, um, some exchange of money I suppose, at some point, but for now it's free, baby.

Bbird So, um, are you going to have a letter to the editor Section.

Chris Yes. Because you you brought that up and I was like, oh my God, light bulb. Duh. That's really important, right?

Bbird Oh I think so.

Chris Because like.

Bbird Yeah.

Chris Yes. Like you said. Right.

Bbird It's so if somebody doesn't understand something that we wrote, they can ask for more clarification. Or if they have some science that contradicts something that somebody wrote, they can say. Wait, I read this. Yes. And we can look at those sources. I think it's just a really important part of. Creating community and, um, giving people a feedback mechanism so that we can we don't just, like, write it and throw it at them, but we have to be responsible and accountable for that writing. Right? Because they can come back with questions or opinions or that was a great article or this is getting boring or whatever they want to say. Um, no. It's so, so important to have exchange of voices in our industry because it's just, um, like put out to that to groomers and not taken from them, you know what I'm saying? It's a very one sided kind of an industry right now. Or we have these talking suits, including my own. Uh, I'm looking forward to the letters to the editor.

Chris Yeah, I think it will. Yes. Because, you know, there's always been, like, this kind of insulated disconnect between what educators are putting out into the industry as soon as there's any questions put to them about, you know, can you cite your sources that in the internet has just made that polarization and that insulation even more deeply entrenched? And for me, we are living in an age where we need to be reaching across the aisle and inviting a lot of discussion, whether it's comfortable or not. And a lot of accountability and questioning of things, because, I mean, just the fact that any one thing that we do during the grooming visit can be accomplished in a variety of different ways, depending on the individual. Educating is the same way. I mean, you've got to deliver the material and make sure that it's it's in a medium where people are able to understand it. You know, the whole neurodivergent movement within our industry, because those groomers are so relevant and there's a lot of neurodivergent groomers in our industry. I think because of we bond more with animals. I mean, we're just Innately good at that part of it. And those groomers need. However they're learning model works for them. They need to have options in terms of getting more education and furthering their career instead of being kind of like an island. You know, there's a we're a cottage industry, but a lot of groomers are ivory tower groomers where they're kind of cut off. And I that's why magazines like this, books that we've all been involved in, blogs, podcasts, it is all really, really important for our industry as a whole.

Susy Will there be like an Ask the Expert column where you can, because you'll have this bevy of twelve different experts that could actually respond to, like, for instance, a common question that comes along, you pick something, then you could let all the experts respond in their own in different ways. Because one of my pet peeves is the fact that there's eight different ways to do a nail trim, and that when people go up to teach it, they say, this is the way you need to do it. You need to do it this way. And that's not the truth. You need to figure out what works for the dog. You need to figure out what works for you. You need to use one of the tools. There's just a gazillion different ways that it can be approached. And I think teaching probably the same. I know it was with tap dancing.

Chris Yeah. And that again, there's a good, a good, um, idea of something that we could involve where we could even take a single question and provide a space for each individual author to give their feedback. And just almost like an the importance of anecdotal advice. I mean, it's very, very real and very necessary in this line of work because you can get one thing done in so many different ways, and it would be fun to see, um, the people that are contributing information to the magazine to give their feedback just as proof of like, you don't have to do everything, only one way. And all of us are successful in our work. We're we're teaching and educating in different ways. And look at the fact that we can have safe space for people to do things differently instead of saying one and only way, right? Yes. Yeah, that's a good point. I'm going to write that down because that's yeah.

Susy I got a point. I'm going to give myself a round of applause. There we go. All right. Thanks for that. One of the things that's difficult when because there's so many sites now that will give you feedback, and you don't know whether you're talking to someone who's twenty two or somebody who's sixty two. You don't know if they've been grooming five minutes or fifty years. You just really don't know who you're getting. But if you had the ask the expert question and answer kind of a place, then you would have already kind of vetted the people who would be responding in their different methods because it's so subjective. And grooming is such an interesting career because as your hands and your body changes and your your skill level increases and your physicality decreases, you have to make some adjustments and you're not the same groomer you were when you just started out, that's for sure. And especially if you hang in there. So getting the wide variety of information but from trusted sources I think is really valuable.

Chris Very, very it's the trusted sources. That's the key there. I mean, even AI will have, uh, you know, little things that they'll say and it's like, hmm, I don't know if that that's necessarily, uh, not a hallucination of some type. So you have to investigate even with that. And I know bird has been working with that, um, for quite a while now. Like asking questions, providing feedback. And then that all goes into like this mind meld that's shared and ripples out across the globe. I mean, it's amazing. I mean, it really is amazing how interconnected we are.

Bbird I think this is a most exciting time to be alive and to be writing and to be, you know, like, I, I love being able to toss things back and forth with AI and, and AI and actually likes feedback likes. Right. And the other day, AI complimented me because, uh, it threw out some references to me, but they were like incomplete. They didn't have volume and date of publication and stuff like that. And I said, you know, I need more complete references than this because I need for my readers to be able to go to my references.

Chris Yes. Right.

Bbird And so AI complimented me on my level of professionalism. And because behind that request.

Chris Yeah. And there you go. I mean, that level of feedback, it just makes you feel like you're. It feels good. It's a little bump. Yeah. That what you're doing matters. And even though it's coming from code, it's very real in that it keeps you engaged and it keeps you thinking and on point about about stuff. So yeah, I agree.

Bbird And sometimes your correction is absolutely needed.

Chris Yes. Not like Wikipedia.

Susy It's pretty exciting. We're living at this moment in time that is bigger than the industrial revolution, bigger than the Renaissance. We're in this flux where, like all of us, had to get up and change the channel on the television at one time, and some of us even didn't have a TV at all. Like it wasn't even invented. Now we have basically Star Trek computers that you can talk to, and they respond back and they take care of your house, and you can have them look in your front yard and see who's messing around out there. I mean, the the stuff that we have at our fingertips in our lifetime, that kind of progression has never been seen in history ever. And we're getting to live it and I'm embracing it. It's exciting. I hope that they figure out a way to put my brain into a jar and then roll it around on, like, a cart or something, because I want to see what happens here. I'm so excited about the future. We're in a spot where, yeah, it's not perfect. Right now. Everything is being flooded. Uh, for instance, social media is being flooded with AI images and AI stories and people trying to make money off of people clicking on things. But as we go along, we can start recognizing I recognize AI speech patterns, I recognize response patterns. I can pick out an AI article. There's one thing AI has fabulous information and guide you to write better. But if you just take what it says and stick it up that way, it's very obvious. So we're still working through this stuff, but what an exciting time we're living in. It's so freaking cool. Anyway, it is.

Chris And I and I have enough of a mental capacity that I can actually do something with it.

Susy Exactly.

Chris I mean, all of us here, it's it is. You're right. And that is one thing that I did say for the magazine is we're we're not going to allow any AI generated photos yet because I don't want anyone, you know, to create, like, for instance, a picture of skin that's not factual. And it happens. I've done a lot of research online looking for things. And some of the AI images are they're beautiful, like they're super clear and lots of color and texture, but they're not factual. So that was the only thing I said. No AI yet. Please, let's not do it quite yet. We're not ready.

Susy Like I said, it's great to guide you. You don't want to copy and paste so much. It's an interesting time for kids too, because of course there's kids that have always had computers in their lives. I started very young. My dad had one of the very first Mac computers and I was all over it. Even though I was pretty little, I was curious and I wanted to see how it worked. But the people who are starting out with a mouse in their hand, well, not even a mouse anymore. You don't even use a mouse anymore. You use your fingers on the screen or in the air or. Yeah, or. Well, sometimes you need a mouse, a mice instead of mice.

Chris I still have an old computer with a mouse on it, just like in case.

Bbird Well because my because using just my hand tends to hurt my hand. And my mouse is more ergonomic actually. Yeah yeah I know, yeah I know. The funny thing is though that we get spoiled and we think everything is a touch screen.

Chris Yes, I will sometimes go up and massage a screen. I'm like, oh yeah, that's not that big.

Susy That's me. I have a non-touchscreen laptop and I'm constantly poking it. Oh, right. It doesn't do that.

Chris That's a learning curve. See right there. Sometimes I feel like such a primate.

Susy Yeah.

Bbird So, Chris, what is happening now with your CE program and your teaching?

Chris So the CCE is still out there. It's still available. The master or the L2? The second level course. The book is completed. It's, um, at the editor. What? What has been holding it up so much is the design process in that I want it to be tabbed and divided, um, and color coded. I've, I've decided that those things are really, really important to help the groomers kind of keep track of valuable information and be able to find it quickly within the book. So that is still underway. And I think, like you brought up to when groomers complete the CCE, they have all that information, but yet it can be for for a lot of groomers in my myself too, because I remember what it was like when I was inundating myself with a lot of info. Quickly you lose some of it, so it's important to revisit it and whatnot, but a lot of the groomers who finish the CCE are then like, okay, well, what do what do I do now? Like their role? Like you brought up, their roles are a little vague or they don't quite understand how to put it into action. And that is where that master L2 course picks up, right? Um, and how to do these things and, and how to design your work model and network with veterinarians and things like that. So that is all still there. It's all still active. And I think this magazine will just be another layer of supportive, um, material for that effort.

Bbird Yeah, I think I think that it's very important in learning. Repetition is very important in learning. And to take a course in graduate, and then you just tend to lose stuff and you reinforce what you liked and what you were drawn to, but not necessarily things that might have been more of a challenge for you to accept or to understand.

Chris Yes.

Bbird I think this magazine is going to be extremely valuable of, of just kind of like keeping the whole CC profession clarified and the values, because CC attending to skin is not the way we've been taught to groom. We've been taught to attend to the coat.

Chris Right?

Bbird Skin. It's just important when it's not normal.

Chris Right, right.

Bbird So there's a whole like disease treatment model that happens to skin. But but CCE injects in between that and takes a more preventative approach. And that requires a different headset than.

Chris It.

Bbird Does. You know, it's not a Western medical model headset. It requires a more holistic, um, more alternative headset. And not everybody has that framework. So I think the magazine will start forming the profession, actually, you know, we'll start be like putty and it will start giving it shape and form and yeah, remember this. And how about that?

Chris Oh, I love that. That's that's so true. You're right. And and I think I mean even with the veterinarian field, with how little information the medical profession has on skin and coat, it's very much not front and center unless you're curious about it and go looking for it. And this is just a way to keep it up to date to layer. Each month, another round of more additional information to keep groomers thinking, um, and you know, like you said, we've been taught to deal with the coat, but really, if the skin is healthy, you'll have good coat. If the dog is healthy inside, you'll get good coat. So it's a top down instead of bottoms up approach. Um, you know, the pyramid being on its head of doing the the cosmetic grooming, um, work is very important, but it doesn't stop there for a lot of dogs. And considering our gene pool with with mixed breeds and, you know, the emergence of SA and now in all of these doodles and stuff, these groomers, what's following on the heels of the doodle craze is doodle skin and coat issues. Because the the foundational breeds, whether they're Labrador, Bernese Mountain dog, you know, poodle, whatever they're mixing with. All of that genetic soup goes into each individual mixed breed dog, and now we're starting to see skin and coat issues with a lot of these dogs as they're they're aging, you know, and yes, it's a, um, how do I want to say a fad of sorts, but the dogs need help. Like they didn't ask to be born as a mixed breed dog with skin and coat issues because they have a genetic predisposition. It's important to get the groomers the information they need to deal with those situations when they walk in the salon and in terms of liability. Right? Because how often do we get blamed for causing skin and coat issues when we haven't?

Bbird Right. Listen, I got in I got involved in a very interesting discussion with my AI the other night, and it has to do with certain breeds having, uh, I don't know, it's sort of, let me just say, having leaky skin, having greater Los transepidermal, moisture loss, water loss, water loss. And it's genetic.

Chris Yep.

Bbird And I jumped on that. He or she just said that there were certain breeds. I said like what? And we got into a whole thing with references and everything. I'm going to write an article about that.

Chris Oh that's awesome. I got goosebumps, I love that.

Bbird I'm going to write it for the well, I don't know if I'll make it for next issue. Second issue is going to overlap my knee surgery, and I don't know exactly how that's going to affect me, but I found that so interesting and so applicable. It explains a lot.

Chris Yeah.

Bbird That just seemed to be some breeds that are prone to dry skin. And because they lose, they don't hold their moisture. Well.

Chris Right.

Bbird It's that's going to be that's going to blow up.

Chris Yeah I think so too, because we're getting like I said, these fad breeds are coming into their own adulthood. And that's when you start seeing issues with skin and coat really happening, because now they're at the crescendo of their immune system development. They've got their adult coat in. Their body is slowing down a little bit. Their hormones are, you know, depending on when they were spayed or neutered, their hormones are coming into consideration. And there is an emerging ongoing issue with, I mean, even just getting veterinarian support from vets that are versed in what's going on in the on the heels of this whole doodle craze, just the doodles alone, um, that Essar Group that I'm in on Facebook has just blown up in the last year.

Bbird Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to point you to one of the best whitener shampoos in our marketplace. We're talking about show Season Brite shampoo. It features a deep cleaning system and a punchy whitening system that goes beyond the usual blue colorant, with an actual optical brightener and a dash of dimethicone. This makes all colors look radiant and glowing, and white coats look like new snow. Get your bright on Today show season, where every day is a show day.

Susy The Groupon 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 Comm. You touched on it earlier, but I just wanted to reinforce that general practice vets get about two hours of skin inflammation in their entire course in school, not just like you would think. I mean, in my mind, I'm like, oh, they must have a whole quarter on skin. Well, they don't they don't. They have a very little teeny tiny segment. The other people, the other people who get no inflammation are general practice doctors on addiction. They don't understand addiction. They don't know anything about addiction. Maybe it's changing now, but in the same way, They are the first line of defense though, so when the pet owner goes to their vet with a reoccurring skin problem, that vet has very little actual knowledge in how to help that dog develop. So yeah, CCE program the in-between. There needs to be an in-between mediator that works with the client a little bit more than the general vet does with a little more information, although not quite to the extent of the schooling that a specialist in veterinary specialty does. Yeah, like that's where you guys would fit in really nicely, is to help the regular person who doesn't have thousands of dollars or pet insurance, but they have ended up with a dog that they love that is miserable because of the skin problems it's having, and then they don't know where to go. So they go back to their general doctor because that's what we do. And the general doctor throws medication at it because that's what they're taught. That's all they know. It's not like they're at fault. Right. But when the pet client goes there, they want to make the pet feel better. So they throw palliative measures over the top of everything, and it never really gets to the source. They don't do allergy testing. They don't do food elimination diets. They don't do hormone checks. They don't do any of the stuff that's actually necessary to diagnose and treat a skin issue, because they're not involved in that very much. Even though today's practice, probably it used to be flea dermatitis was the biggest thing that brought you into the vet. Yeah. With repetitive, you know, that was their money maker and the minute advantage program front line, those those effective flea killers and flea birth control and all of that came out. Then people stopped needing the reason to go. So they pushed vaccines. You need vaccines, vaccines, vaccines. So at least you walk into your vet once a year. Ear problems are another one. Ear and skin are really the other main reasons people go into the vet.

Chris Yeah, no you're.

Susy Right, get almost no information on it. So it's interesting.

Chris Yes. I mean even even myself, I still deal with clients that have strictly allopathic, um, doctors that just in there doing the best they can, but they just don't have it on their radar. And I basically have to take care of the pet and the most supportive way I possibly can while trying to get that, that client, that owner, to get a second opinion, to go to a specialist. And our, I mean, our medical field for human medicine, we have an ongoing you know, you go in, you see your primary physician and you get a referral for these other areas of study where you might need help outside of the scope of of knowledge of your your family practitioner or your primary. And with the veterinarian field, there's a lot less of that. It seems like a lot of family vets or or how do I want to say standard practice vets are I don't know, I'm not a vet. They have a really hard job. I wouldn't want to be a vet. Tell I mean, I just wouldn't, but there seems to be a push for them to fix everything and heal everything. They're under the crunch for time, money because, you know, clients don't always have a lot of money to spend, and outsourcing or doing a referral kind of puts them out of the driver's seat. So anyway, at any rate, my point is the book starts out with, you know, estheticians have a foundational necessity in this work to understand how skin and coat works so that you can advocate for a pet when it comes in. At the end of the day, it's up to the owner to follow through. But if you have it on your radar of why things look and behave the way that they do, it gets you continuously asking questions that are going to keep you on the cusp of not only your own information and knowledge base, but passing that on to your clients and really creating a truly supportive business model and a niche area of work. You know, an emerging area of work within this industry. So yeah.

Susy Well, pet insurance is going to change everything. It's already changing things here in the northwest because we're such a pet centric area and we're so focused on pets. We have more pets than children here in the northwest, apparently. I've heard that statistic in the internet is always right, right? Right. Yeah. Needless to say, with the new influx of pet insurance, people are buying pet insurance. The veterinary hospitals know this, the corporations especially, and they're starting to run diagnostics and tests and all kinds of crazy stuff, like making sure that they're getting the invoice totals up because they know the insurance companies are paying for it, not the people anymore. So then the person like me, who doesn't buy into the insurance system in that respect, goes in and they're flooded with, you need this bloodwork and that bloodwork and this test and that test, and you don't have the insurance to cover it. Well, that skin and coat allergy problems and stuff falls right into their sweet spot where they can really milk the insurance companies for every bit of it. And the corporations and I don't have a problem with corporations. Most of the time. But anywhere where they're pushing invoice totals, doctor invoice totals, I think, is not honest medicine.

Chris It's a slippery slope. Yes, yes. And you have so many, you know, buyouts now where these family practice vets are being bought up by corporations and then they, they push the pharmaceutical aspect. In the testing aspect, you're very that's spot on. And someone who doesn't have pet insurance, I mean, not only have I noticed that pet insurance is cutting back more and more and more on what they will cover as a basic plan, like you've got to pay extra for this clause and that, you know, coverage. But yeah, the corporate veterinarian element in our pet world is really quickly developing into a problem for people who don't have insurance. And that's not a really fair situation to be in. If you can't afford pet insurance or your pet falls outside a coverable realm, then what? You know, I mean, being a breeder of Labradors, we hear it all the time. I mean, we've had to readjust our our sales contracts and whatnot for our pet, our puppy buyers to let them know if you deviate, You know, when you go in and you have a a spay and neuter done at, you know, six months old and a rabies shot at three months and a whole barrage of additional vaccines. And then you put them on flea and tick medicine. We're going to have a problem. Like you're doing things to that young animal that are going to forever alter its developmental phases and change that dog. Yeah. I mean, it's just it touches everything, everything we do within the grooming realm. And as pet owners, the medical field with, with regard to pet ownership is fastly adapting right now along with everything else.

Susy Yeah, it's it's that time we live in.

Bbird Did we digress or what?

Susy Right turn.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that was fun. That was a fun little excursion. Um.

Susy Good. Well, it ties in so closely with with skin issues. Yeah. And the vet industry, I mean, they're just hand in hand. You can't do one without the other getting involved, it seems.

Bbird I am experiencing that in the middle with little and her skin problem. And the other day, yeah, I noticed that Marco was was kind of itching at his t shirt. I thought he wanted me to take his t shirt off. A few days later, I took his t shirt off. He's got two spots on the back of his back. Same shit going on, and I've already been through two prescriptions of antibiotics and anti-itch medication for little that clear it up and then as soon as I stop comes back within a month. And that cost me like a thousand dollars to get that, you know, and the the refill on the prescription is one hundred dollars. I don't have that. I don't want to keep going through that. So let's have some hope for the enzyme approach.

Susy People without pet insurance.

Chris Right. And that's just it. When you have a pet that has ongoing issues, especially if they're age related, you know, just between the aging process and the hormones and all those changes, um, that stuff's just going to keep rearing its head after they go off medication. And then you have veterinarians that do these continuous cycles of antibiotics and steroids, and that bottoms out the immune system every time they go off. And it is like just an ongoing issue. That's really, uh, compounds, if you will. So and I get it, I mean, people especially right now people are trying to hold back, you know, save money and whatnot. And the pets are are in the middle of everything with whatever they need, alongside everything that's going on in our world right now.

Bbird Okay, on that note. How are we going? How are we going to wrap this up on a positive, happy note? Susie? Right.

Susy I'm just going to say I'm very excited to see how this goes. Chris. And I think you are extremely ambitious to do it once a month. I think it's going to be fun and it'll keep you busy. If you're like me, I've got to be doing something twenty four over seven while other than, well, sleeping is doing something. But I know what it's like to be driven like that. Barbara does too, to be driven and, um, yeah, and don't forget about you. You know, don't lose yourself in the mix.

Chris So a way to positively wrap that up. You know, while while she's figuring out her technical stuff is just to remember that we have as groomers, we have a very real opportunity to positively impact every single pet we put our hands on to advocate. You know, like, hey, I saw this and this at this grooming visit and we don't want to have that get out of hand. So, you know, have a vet get a set of eyes on it. Hope the vet is up to speed on things and continue to keep after those those owners every time they come in. I mean, that's part of this work is really just being a voice for the voiceless. You know, with the things that we see, I and I love you for even wanting to be involved. I appreciate that so much. And that's the cool thing about being creative, is when you've got other people that are willing to help and want to give their input, it just makes it so much more meaningful and it assures that it's going to be well rounded. It won't be, you know, singular in its viewpoints.

Bbird Yeah, well, so let's just wrap it up, I said, I we're all excited about this new project and it just gets more exciting the more we talk about it and the more we we suggest things. And thanks for being so open to my suggestions. I love you for that. I'm really happy to be part of it because I, I want to know that my voice is larger than just what's going on so far. So let's keep that in mind. And we didn't talk about think about it. We need to announce that there will be a second think about it. Summit between Chris and myself in coming up in February, February fifteenth. We're going to do a a not all day webinar or opportunity. Um, and we'll be coming up with more information soon in January. So in the next week or so, um, we'll be talking about it more on the groom pod and hopefully in the magazine. And, um, I want to do a webinar on it's going to be called excuse my clarification, and I'm going to pick on some points of knowledge that I think people may have learned wrong for one reason or another, maybe because of how it we tend to oversimplify the structure of the skin, or maybe because of sloppy writing, or maybe because somebody wrote about something and over overreached their skis. Um, but I want to make some clarifications, and I want to talk a little bit about what we can expect from science and what we can't. So that's one of the things that I want to talk about. And I'll come up with a I know I had a second, I had a second topic.

Chris I think you wanted to do something about the Korean beauty movement.

Bbird Korean beauty.

Chris Was that correct?

Bbird Going to be for the written issue? Um, I want, I want I can't remember what my second point was, but what do you think you're going to talk about?

Chris I don't know, I had a whole I had an article that I was working on for this issue that's going to be in the February issue, I believe, specific to sebaceous adenitis. But, um, there's so many different I think I want to talk about. Transepidermal water loss. I think that's really important because it kind of touches fingertips with essay. Um, and I think if, you know, like you talked earlier, when you're researching things, there's so many different segues and pathways that you can go down rabbit holes just one after the other. So I think I want to stick with the transepidermal water loss and just talk about how to support dogs that have an ongoing issue with that, whether they're older or younger, or if it's breed specific because of a genetic predisposition, because that's something that I think a lot of groomers aren't aware of, you know, is like the importance of reconditioning hair once you clean it and reconditioning the skin and how how that can cause so many subsequent issues later on.

Bbird And maybe some humectants work better than others.

Chris Yes. And when to stay away from emollients, because sometimes that's not always a good thing. Mhm. Yep. And that I mean I won't get into that. But that again ties in with understanding ingredients. It's one of the foundational structures that we have got to have in our tool belt.

Bbird Right. I was going to do a quiz on the groom pod discussion group about some terms and have groomers identify the definitions, match the terms to the definitions.

Chris Oh yeah.

Bbird Just a way to just keep them thinking about what? What what's an emollient? What's the difference between an emollient and an emulsifier? Let's know that.

Chris Right? Right. Oh, yeah. You give me goosebumps every time we talk. I just love the creative energy and the process. You know, like I am in love with hearing other people get curious and passionate about stuff. I just love it. And if I didn't have it in my life. Oh, what a sad, sad life I would have. Although it can be a menace because of my brain, you know, going all the time about stuff.

Bbird Well, I know mine too, but I just, uh, I, I just start my morning with learning something.

Chris Yes.

Bbird Even if it's just the news. I get the news. The Apple news on my laptop.

Chris Yeah.

Bbird And that includes. Scientific American is one of my magazines that I nice that I have so that I get science stuff from that I get history stuff. I, you know, like I just learned things. Yeah.

Chris Every morning and they say, I mean, it has been said for a long time if, if you're sad and troubled, learn something because it really helps you retrain your brain and keep those neural pathways pliable, malleable, and ever changing. Um, and it gives you a sense of power over things you might otherwise feel powerless about. I mean, there's so much big picture things going on, so many big picture things going on right now. It's important to remember that those big overarching issues are a culmination of each individual's input. So you can either take part in it or you can say, hey, that doesn't serve me in my life. I want to do this instead. And that, thank God, is a choice we've got every day to get up and do something new.

Bbird So let's wrap it up. And I'm so happy that you came by today. And we had this great talk, and I can't wait to. In fact, I am going to try to get done by tomorrow. Um, my article on tea tree oil. Okay. And then I'll turn right away and polish the conversation on K beauty and CCE.

Chris Awesome. We're always pivoting, aren't we? Pivot pivot pivot pivot. Yeah. I think we learned at the grooming table you're like, oh, I had a ten pound schnauzer that comes in in this forty pound menace comes walking through the door. Well let's pivot. We're going to pivot again. Suddenly he doesn't want anything done to him. We have to pivot again. So why wouldn't we want to do that in our teaching.

Bbird Yeah absolutely. So we'll see you soon.

Chris Thank you so much for having me today. This is so fun.

Bbird You're welcome.

Chris Alright.

Bbird We love you. Love you. Alright everybody, thank you. And thank you for tuning into the groom pod. We'll see you next time. Bye now.

Chris Bye.

Susy Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening to the show. And happy grooming everyone. See you next time on the groom pod. Bye now.