GroomPod 473 Marlene Romani, and GTG February 2026

GroomPod 473

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Susy Hello, groomers. You found the groom pod. Welcome to our virtual salon. My name is Susy 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 in. 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 Bird.

Barbara Bird Hello. Thank you for glad to be here with you again for what's up?

Susy Well, it's another sad passing in the grooming industry. We're going to be talking about that. And we're going to review this February's issue of Groomer to groomer twenty twenty six. And all of this is made possible by our great sponsors Best Shot Show Season, Precision Sharp, Groomore and Stazko. And if you guys want to support us, you can go to our website. Com and use the donation button or join us on Patreon. But most importantly, tell a friend to listen to the show. What's new this week is from Groomore.

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Susy So Marlene Romani passed away this week.

Barbara Bird Oh, I heard that, I saw that.

Susy It's really sad. I knew her really well. She was one of my very first mentor slash educators. And then along the line, after a while, I thought I might want to actually open a school, and she ran a really tight ship back there as far as her school was concerned. And I wanted to go look at it, and she actually let us stay back there. But first, let me read you her obituary because it was really nicely done, probably by one of her kids or her niece, Ruthie. Marlene Ramani, born July first, nineteen forty four, passed away peacefully in Indiana, Pennsylvania on February fifteenth, twenty twenty six at the age of eighty one. A devoted mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Marlene was a trailblazing entrepreneur whose groundbreaking invention revolutionized the world of professional dog grooming while raising her two children, Doug and Christine Rahmani, Ruby Marlene built a career as a dedicated dog groomer. Her passion for the craft led her to invent the Clipper VAC, a revolutionary vacuum system that transformed grooming practices by making them safer and cleaner and more efficient. She founded M.d.c. Rahmani, Inc. to manufacture the Clipper VAC, and established a training school to teach groomers worldwide how to use it effectively. Marlene traveled extensively, sharing her innovation at industry events across the globe. Today, Clipper Facts are used in grooming salons internationally, forever changing the standards of the profession. An ardent dog lover, particularly of standard poodles, Marlene shared her home with more than thirty beloved companions over the years. Even later in life, she volunteered at the Indiana Animal Shelter, grooming dogs and helping them find forever homes. So the very first trade show, was it even a trade show? The very first seminar that was done out here in the northwest was done at our racetrack, our horse racing track, and it was Marlene and John Stasko.

Barbara Bird Oh, boy.

Susy And Marlene did half the day and John did the other half of the day. And he had his booklet and his little pricing system. And it was fascinating to me because I'm kind of a numbers girl, not necessarily in doing the math, but in following the numbers. And he he taught us all of that. And then Marlene came up with this magical vacuum system that looked so cool, and I just fell in love with it from day one. And I went back and talked to her after the seminar, and she was just so warm and friendly to me and encouraging. And I believe that I bought my Clipper back right there on the spot after watching her use it. So I wasn't even barely a groomer at that point when I immediately started grooming with suction. And over the years she was always there at the trade shows, and I would always make an effort to walk up to her and tell her I was going to be somebody someday. And she said, I know you're going to be somebody someday. Well, here I am. I'm somebody. I don't know how much of a somebody I am, but at least I did fulfill that dream of mine. And she shared that dream with me. And then, like I said later on, I thought perhaps I would like to have a school here. And so I was talking to her about it and she said, well, why don't you come out and spend a week in my school and watch how we run it? And I'll share with you all of my information about how to run a school. So my friend Sharon and I hopped on a plane and we went back and we stayed in a hotel very close to them because every day took us to her factory and showed us around, and she gave me all of the paperwork for how to run a school from start to finish, everything that she put out there. And then I was able to observe for five days. Her students learning and man, it was a great thing. But of course, the whole point of me going there was to figure out how to do a school. But what ended up happening was I definitely decided I didn't want to do a school. Yes.

Barbara Bird Then at eighteen worked for you.

Susy It did.

Barbara Bird Good. Better to find out that way than right?

Susy Absolutely. There was so much joy for the profession in her. And at that time her husband was there as well. And then we met her, her niece Jessica, who was teaching in the school and was really going to the trade shows with her and all of that. So I got to know her. I got to know the family. We spent a lot of time together, and of course, my favorite moment of that was chasing the groundhogs around her big, gigantic front yard. I was trying to I was trying to get close enough to them to get a really good picture. So I spent a lot of time out trying to chase the wildlife, but it was such an amazing house that they built and it was up on the hill and it overlooked the factory. It was beautiful back there and we always had this great connection, and I'm really sorry that she's gone, because I would have loved for her to have seen where I've ended up, which I'm pretty happy with, where I've ended up. I'm good. I don't need to run a school. I do lots of teaching. I don't have to worry about the multiple personalities. Yeah, I think I owe a lot to Marlene and I'm still using my Clipper back. I actually still I had three Clipper back totes, but now I'm down to two because I gave a needy groomer one and I felt good about that. I never really did like her attachment to the heads. So I do have a Hanvey conversion kit on my clipper back, but I cannot imagine where I would be if I didn't embrace that technology and use it to the best of my advantage with all of my clients making my grooming easier. And I know it's not for everyone, but if you're not a scissor and we all know that are listening to this podcast with any length of time, that I am not a scissor. It is a fantastic tool. I can skim with it. I never I have never had a hair splinter in my boobs, and I don't know if many women groomers who can say that that they've never had a hair splinter in their boobs.

Barbara Bird I haven't ever had one.

Susy Really, because everybody complains about them profusely. But I also, I don't think I've ever experienced that. I've had hair splinters in my hands, but I was always able to get them out and it never really got awful. But plus I don't have a very big shelf anyway, so I'm not sure I would have had any hair splinters. Everything just kind of fall past. But needless to say, I am grateful for Marlene and I will miss her. And I have missed her over not seeing her at the trade shows in the last few years, but I know she was battling some health issues there at the end, but how cool that she made it to eighty one. That's pretty good.

Barbara Bird But it just hit me. I'm older than that.

Susy Yes you are.

Barbara Bird And here I am getting ready to go to Atlanta Pet Care, now known as groom’d. I'm so excited. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to be a part of the hanvey team. Um, I'm going to have a hanvey badge and maybe a t shirt or whatever. You know, I'm so excited about. My family is embracing me enough to include me in the booth.

Susy I think that's super.

Barbara Bird Isn't that super? I just it's so exciting.

Susy I do feel. Oh, oh, I have some news. I have some potential news now. It's not completely news yet, but I'm feeling very confident that I can say I feel a tad bit guilty because I am a Hanvey follower. I love their stuff, I love Curtis, and I love that he loves you and that you're part of the family. And it looks like I might be driving a wagon tails van in the future. So the news is, my friend Sharon that went to Marlene's place with me is retiring. She's been back east taking care of her sister for a while, and I always said I want first right to refusal if you sell your van. Because eventually I'm probably going to need to get out of the two thousand and six cargo trailer that was built by a groomer's husband that is not holding up well twenty years later. It's okay. I didn't expect it to. Actually. I didn't expect it to last twenty years, but it has. But I think that she spent so much time back east that she dropped all of the rest of her clients because she's been gone like seven months, so off and on. So I think she dropped all of her clients. And then when they're ready to come home now, she was like, I don't really need to go back to work. We've been doing fine the way it is. So she called me and she said, hey, remember when you said, um, it's time? And I said, oh. And then I hung up the phone and I had a complete full blown panic attack. Because I hate change. I hate change, and I'm so comfortable in my perfectly simple, easy to manage trailer that I've rebuilt eight thousand times, that I had to really work through the process in my head of switching vehicles. And when I first thought of it, I forgot that when it becomes my vehicle that I get to change things in there. And all I could remember was the couple times that I worked with Sharon and how frustrating it was, but I realized that the stuff that was frustrating is all fixable. I can change it and modify it to make it work for me. So I am now embracing the idea of driving a two thousand and six vehicle still, but a wagon trails conversion. And it's a Ford, and I think it's going to be a good step up. And I've so confident. I've even told two of my clients that I'm going to be changing vehicles. So I think that's a commitment right there. What do you think?

Barbara Bird Oh, it sounds like you're making the change. You're gonna go down, you're gonna embrace the change. You're going to take the opportunity to upgrade your image. For one thing.

Susy For the last couple years, it's been very difficult to keep the interior of the trailer clean because the whole thing was sprayed with Rhino line and it's coming off. So if I try to scrub areas, it just flakes off. So I am very excited to, number one, have an environment that might be easier to clean. I'm hoping. And number two, get ready for this air conditioning and heat. It's going to be a new world.

Barbara Bird It's going to be a new world. You're going to do fine. You're going to love it. You're going to love it and you're going to hate it. You're going to be nostalgic for your old trailer because you're because you're so attached like that. But it's growth, Susie. It's professional growth.

Susy It definitely will look a lot better because I can't get the exterior of my trailer clean now. She had graphics on it that were really cute, but it was a wrap and it's long since kind of come off, but you can still see the shadow on the paint, but it'll be a primarily white van, so no problem. I can deal with that and it will be at least a couple weeks, maybe three weeks before it actually happens. So I have a lot of time to really get excited. I'm driving my husband crazy. He's like, why are you telling me this? I said, Because I'm excited. This is a big deal. He's like, tell me when it breaks. Then I'm interested because he's the chief fixer. But yeah, anyway, that's the big news for me. And the big news for you is Atlanta Pet Fair slash groom’d.

Barbara Bird Right? That's the big news for me. And my needs healing very well. I've been told that I'm at the top of the class in my healing concern, and I'm just real confident that it's going to be good. And I'm driving down with our friend Jennifer Bishop Jenkins.

Susy I figured out how to remember it. Yeah, B comes before J. Bishop comes before Jenkins. That one works for me.

Barbara Bird She's a DJ and I'm bjb. And then I know that. And I still stumble over her name. It's just one of those names that grabs my tongue and gags me with it. Yeah, I'm gonna ride down to Jennifer and Melody's going to be there and drag me home, and she's competing with her standard poodle, her beautiful parti colored standard poodle. I'm so excited to see how she does at her first competition. I'm real happy to kind of be on her team for that. Plus, I'm going to be floating around the handy booth and be able to talk bathing beauty with anybody that wants to pick my brain about shampoos and the bathing system, or using the bathing system or anything, is holding you back from getting the bathing beauty. You need to come and talk to me.

Susy I received a cool box from Best Shot and in it was a new product from them. Did you get one of those?

Barbara Bird Yeah, it has all of the Stashko products and their shout out to Max anti-static, which is a really nice product and it just keeps the static down around my computer really well, um, smells a little coconut, very coconut ish, which is not my favorite.

Susy Oh, but it is mine. Ooh.

Barbara Bird But it is yours. So you like it? And, um, I think it's a good addition. It's a it's something that, uh, they've cooked up with J scrubs.

Susy So it's a scissoring spray and anti-static.

Barbara Bird Yep.

Susy It's much lighter as far as, um, conditioning ingredients, that kind of thing.

Barbara Bird Right, exactly.

Susy Okay.

Barbara Bird You're so smart. See, I, I taught you well. Yeah, exactly.

Susy Excellent.

Barbara Bird Much lighter than air conditioner. And it it doesn't like build up. And it cuts the, uh, static cling immediately. It's really good for static around your grooming table or on your dog, as well as it's kind of fluffing up and and scissoring, you know, combing scissors, comb and scissor. It's good for that.

Susy Okay, cool. Well, I look forward to testing it. Mostly I have been using the regular products, like the shampoo and conditioner. I've been using that on almost all my dogs. And you know, those are really good workhorse products. I'm enjoying both of them.

Barbara Bird That's how I feel too. And because I'm not grooming, I gave all of my stash code products to Melodie, who has a van, and she's taking them from me. And I'm going to make up a set of forms that people who are trying out products can use to kind of standardize the impressions, so we can build a library of. Yeah. Assessments. Groomer assessments.

Susy Cool.

Barbara Bird So these are groomer assessment forms. And I think it's going to be real handy. And we'll use it a lot ourselves as you and I. Yes. It's rather whenever we kind of, uh, hand off a product for someone else to try, we can fill out a form, and it's going to be a multiple choice on a scale of one to five.

Susy I like it. Good.

Barbara Bird Yeah.

Susy Okay, well, let's head right on into our first appointment. After we hear this message.

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Susy Ready groomers. Here comes our first appointment. All right. It's time for our discussion of the groomer to Groomer February twenty twenty six issue. Well, what did you think of the cover? Who doesn't love a corgi but.

Barbara Bird Who doesn't love a corgi? But I know, I know, I wanted it one time. I wanted to do a calendar of all, uh. I love to be shown butts too. Oh yeah, and I wanted to do a calendar of doggy butts. You know, it would be great.

Susy I love the look on the dog.

Barbara Bird The clergy butts in the tail, shaped into a heart that's just iconic.

Susy Yes. And adorable. And this is a good one. And the dog is looking back at the person taking a picture with kind of a smile on her face. Her, his. I don't know what it is anyway. I like that it really caught my attention. It's different because it's not one of the winners of the contest. It's just a dog on a dog. Yeah. Very cool. Well, of course, doctor Cliff got the first position as usual on the digital version. I don't know if he's in the first spot on the paper version, but he definitely is on the digital version. And he has an article entitled part of the solution or part of the problem A groomers role in Disease Prevention. And I thought there were some good points in there, but I really don't feel like small grooming shops need to be the vaccine police. And of course, that's what I grabbed on to in this whole conversation there.

Barbara Bird Does your dog have a dog that bordatella? It's just kind of a flaky That thing, if you ask me. At the best, it's affected for six months. So if you have a regular doctor that's coming, you're going to be sending them off to the vet at least twice a year. And so it's not always effective.

Susy It's a little bit like our flu vaccine in that you may hit the strain they get or you may not. And sometimes it's powerful and sometimes it's not. And it's basically a cold. You're you're vaccinating against a cold. And yeah, it's no fun if your dog gets it and you don't want to pass it to other people. I think that's more important. But I have never asked except for in the vet hospital. I've never asked for vaccine proof. And I know, I guess if you're boarding, that would be different.

Barbara Bird If you're boarding, that would be different because that's a different form of exposure where they're exposed over and over again to the dog. The air from the dog mix.

Susy Yep.

Barbara Bird And a small shop. They may not even be exposed to other dogs. Airborne. Whatever. But I have more of a concern about over vaccination of the pet population. Then I have worry about contagious disease in the grooming shop.

Susy Yeah, I agree.

Barbara Bird It depends somewhat on your clientele. If you're doing mostly inner city dogs or dogs that are not getting any vaccinations, then that's one area of concern. If you're doing dogs of a population that that generally take their puppies to get their whole puppies, I like to see that a dog has had the puppy series.

Susy I'm with you.

Barbara Bird If they've had the Puppy Series, then I'm not going to worry. I never made somebody show me the proof. When I did learn was that if they come in with paperwork for vaccinations, you shouldn't wave it off because they might interpret it that you don't care.

Susy That's a good point.

Barbara Bird So I don't just wave them off. I don't say thank you very much and copy down the information on the client card. Um, so I have it, but I don't require I never required that. And then, you know, nearly fifty years of having a business, I had one instance of, uh, kennel cough.

Susy Yeah, I've had a dog that I've groomed, and then it coughed after the fact, and I said, did you board your dog? And they said, yes. And so I just cleaned really well and canceled the last appointment, moved him to a different day. Let things settle in my trailer because it is very small, so I don't want a dog coughing in there and diagnosed coughing, especially one that's been in a boarding kennel or at the dog park or something like that. I thought that his suggestion to make your skin appointments the last of the day was great. Fantastic. I think that's really smart protocol is if you've got a dog that has really crappy skin and you're going to bathe it and do the medicated bath and all that stuff, do it last and then clean your bathing beauty, clean your tub, clean your surfaces afterwards so you're not passing along our friend Pseudomonas aeroginosa because we don't want to cause that problem.

Barbara Bird I also agree, I can't wait to meet doctor Cliff. I've got to go up to him and introduce myself because there's. I gotta break the ice.

Susy His wife is lovely. I've talked to her. She was really lovely. He mentioned vinegar, which is what I run through the bathing beauty at night. He said it's not very good.

Barbara Bird It's not a good disinfectant. It doesn't kill. It's dead. Choose an environment that is undesirable for bacteria so they don't want to have babies. You know they don't want to make themselves at home in an acidic environment like that. For the same reason that the human acid mantle works for humans. It simply discourages most bacteria from spreading.

Susy Well, that's good then, because that's what we're using it for, and I'm not using it to clean my table or anything. I use alcohol for that. So I guess that overall it was an okay article. I thought there was good stuff in there. I didn't like the whole thing, but, yeah, it was all right.

Barbara Bird One of the things that I, I like to mention in terms of disinfecting. One of the very safest ways to disinfect your environment is steam. Steam.

Susy Steam.

Barbara Bird Steam kills quickly.

Susy Quickly. It's hot.

Barbara Bird And thoroughly. You know, I just couldn't get people to use it in Tucson, especially in Tucson, where it gets hot more often than they get cold. Uh, steam cleaning is really good way to disinfect without chemicals. If you're chemically unsure of yourself, the quaternary ammonium compounds, uh, that are sold as candle disinfectants. They're okay, but I'm not a big fan of many disinfectant methods. I would rather use steam and an alcohol.

Susy Okay, now I'm gonna fangirl out again about Daryl Conner and her tidy lips and other face tricks. Did you read that one?

Speaker 6 I thought that was a lovely.

Barbara Bird Article, but it made me cry.

Susy Oh, why?

Barbara Bird Because I can't groom my dogs faces. Neither one of them. Neither one of them. I mean, they will jerk so quickly. Jerk right into the scissors. I mean, I agreed with everything that she said. And I look at Mark, all he's got, like round water hanging on his whiskers in front of his mouth, just like she says will happen. I've been after that piece of fur for months. It's so frustrating to the I don't know what I'm going to do. It just like makes me feel like a failure with my own dogs.

Susy Well, listeners, I want to hear about your own personal dogs that hate grooming. So go on our discussion group at facebook.com, slash the pod and tell us about your own personal dogs who hate grooming. Figgy hated grooming. She just hated it and trying to do her nails. She had dewclaws that were practically embedded in the side of her leg, and just trying to get to them and see them well enough to clip them was a nightmare on her. And for me, I groomed her since she was twelve weeks old. That was so embarrassing for me. If anyone ever saw me trying to get to those stupid dewclaws on her tiny little feet, she just knew how to totally get my number. And I did a dog this week that was adept at getting her head in between my arm and her leg and pushing me away so I couldn't hold her leg in a comfortable spot. And she has a bad shoulder. So I'm desperately trying to be gentle and she's pushing me away with her big dog head. It was terrible. And that's my nephew's dog, so I have been doing her since she was a puppy as well. So I'm always thinking, is it something I'm doing funny? Am I holding weird? No, because I do six dogs a day that don't fight me on this. Why is it my own personal dogs that have the problems?

Barbara Bird I know I always get so happy and patiently, and then I end up with Jodi holding the dog and cooing at it so I can't stand cooing. That brings us to Jennifer's article on the eight commands. What did you think about that?

Susy It wasn't that I didn't like the article. It's that what you do in your grooming shop is personal to you and the dog. Maybe the dog learns he'll. Maybe it knows how to sit. Maybe it stands, but I doubt it as far as off. That's a brilliant one. But I don't think that these are things that the average pet owner is doing with their dogs today. I don't find that the dogs respond to those things. What I find is they respond to my repetition. I never use the word no because it's so overused that it has no meanings to the dog. So some of the stuff, you can use it with a grain of salt, but I don't use those particular commands for the dogs I'm using on my table. I use my own commands, I use turnaround. I think that's super important, and I use it with every dog and every dog learns, turn around. Some of them don't want to do it because they know the other side is coming. But I believe in naming and explaining to the dogs because they understand so much more than we think they do. So much, vastly more information they're picking up from us than these eight commands that they're used to teach in obedience. And maybe they still do teach them in obedience. I have one dog that's a certified canine good citizen that has obedience training, but mostly everybody else knows how to sit. I can tell them to sit. They might sit, especially if I have a cookie. But that's where I had a problem with her article. I think the concept of doing it is great. I think using those commands is not very useful. That's just me.

Barbara Bird Uh, here's another thought. This works for you and you work alone. But when you work in a shop or salon where there's more than one or two groomers and a bather. If everybody's using different language on the same dog, it's not as easy for them to figure it out. So I agree that it should be company standard.

Susy Yes.

Barbara Bird You had a company they would use turnaround. I think that's a good one to use because that tells the dog what's coming and sit and stay. And I've never used stand.

Susy Because it's not one people use at home. It's something you've got to teach the dog yourself. So you probably have a term and this is the thing. Yes. Standardized terms within a grooming shop would be fantastic, especially for things like turnaround and sit and all that stuff. When I'm doing dog nails. I say snip. And then I cut the nail because the dog listens to that and knows to prepare for the nail cut. Things like that, I think are are so valuable for the dog, for our grooming, for the the process. And yeah, it makes complete sense to have everybody in the shop using the same terms and doing the same methods, but to expect our dogs to do the stuff that we don't know what they're doing at home, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And if they say no, no, no, no, no, no, then saying no before you give the command that doesn't work.

Barbara Bird I don't use no so much either.

Susy I think it's great to use standardized stuff, but I don't think we can know what they're learning at home. Use your own stuff sometimes.

Barbara Bird Talk with their owner, especially, um, down. I explained to them down in the community That's used to get the dog to lie down. And if you're trying to get them to get off of somebody, you know the difference between down and off. I guess I had mixed feelings about it. It's like a different language. How many different languages does a dog have to learn in order to get through life as a grooming dog? You know what I'm saying?

Susy Exactly.

Barbara Bird So you might ask, what do you say and I do. I totally agree with you about about that no gets overused. I even overuse it here. But my dogs know what no means. It means shut up.

Susy If you said that to my dog, it would look at you like you were speaking a different language because it wouldn't know that command at all.

Barbara Bird It is a different language is Spanish.

Susy I don't have a Chihuahua. So I think that she brings up important points. I just wouldn't use those terms, that's all. Okay, next we have creating crisis plans that work by Amanda McGrath.

Barbara Bird Oh, yeah. From here on out, that the issue gets kind of scary. Everybody's talking about, uh, planning for, uh, awful stuff to happen. I do think that you need to have an exit plan. Yep. And I like the idea of having phrases that you use with customers, uh, at certain times of stress. I had a whole, like, seven steps to use with a a dissatisfied customer that I used to do as a seminar on, and I felt that having those steps on a card and my phone kept me alive. Being able to get through a difficult moment when I'm feeling defensive and hurt and they've shamed me or something, you know, and I can come up with something to say that wasn't just like buying into that. And you know what? I like staff meetings. Nobody has staff meetings because everybody's on a percentage plan and they'll get paid for staff meetings, you know, like so you offer them pizza because having group meetings and role playing with your staff, it can be so beneficial. I read an article about that.

Susy Or we should do a podcast about it. I think that's a good idea.

Barbara Bird Nobody does role playing and role play. Role playing is a fun way to learn how to handle yourself in crisis situations.

Susy Well, I think it also helps to practice so that things become a little bit more automatic so you don't have to think too much when you're talking about evacuating your shop. That's really important. Make sure you know where the carriers are. They're just these like common sense things that you should work through for yourself and then impart to your staff so that you can get out of there. If there's a shooter, a bomb threat or whatever, or your place is flooding or there's a fire and you need to get the animals out, you should have a plan. I'm all for that. That's why every hotel room you get has the little map with the exit on it. So yeah, I think it was good, valuable, important stuff. Then the next thing was the honors pictures. Instead of the dogs we got, the people thought they were nice pictures. They showed everybody who won that was there in attendance, which I think gets you extra points if you're there in attendance. It was good to get that recognition for everybody who won. So congratulations to all those people. Then they featured a muddy Paws salon that Keith Lauria wrote about and it looked like nice.

Barbara Bird Oh yeah, that's just sounds like a fantastic place. I liked reading that, and it's definitely good to kind of have businesses in our industry that we can look up to, and this is a business to look up to for sure.

Susy And a guide model that you can model some of your stuff after. It's good because we all kind of lock ourselves in our own grooming space, and we don't get to see other people's grooming spaces. Although when I'm out of town I will pop into grooming shops, I will peek into vans. I do it all. As a matter of fact, when I was in California, I made it a goal to see at least one mobile groomer every day. In all four days We saw mobile groomers, so it was pretty, pretty fun. It's a little game I play with myself.

Barbara Bird To chase it down.

Susy No, because we were driving most of the time. But I point them out and I look at their graphics and I wave like a crazy woman, even though they have no idea I'm a groomer. Why? I'm waving at them. They're like, oh, there's that crazy client I had once. No, no, I'm just a groomer. Just one of those things that, uh, I like to do when I'm on the road. We even saw a mobile groomer in Grand Turk when I was there with Brandy on a grooming cruise. We were doing some. Yeah, we saw a mobile groomer there. That was pretty cool. And I've been in grooming shops in Mexico, so I've done a little bit of international checking out of grooming. Not a ton, but some. But I definitely always go into the shops or look in the windows or grooming vans and stuff when I'm on the road. So speaking of that, Cathy Hustler wrote a What's New in Mobile grooming article that I thought was fantastic because it shared a lot of names that don't generally get shared when you're looking for a mobile grooming vehicle.

Barbara Bird I thought it was very well written, but that was an excellent, um, kind of update on the mobile industry. And I like that article too. She's a really good writer.

Susy Yeah, if I was going to pick the article of the whole thing, it would be that article that. But of course I'm a mobile groomer, so it appealed to me. But if you're curious about what's out there, she's got a lot of it. All the information just laid out right there. So read the article.

Barbara Bird To pick up my number one article in that issue. I would have picked Daryl's article.

Susy Yeah, that was pretty good.

Barbara Bird On the lips because I loved to make little shit Zuma look right and kind of get rid of all of that stuff that grows down from underneath their nose, over their mouth. Chris Barry Anthony's articles could two.

Susy Very important information about ways to protect yourself in the grooming salon, which, as we all know, is part of the longevity thing. We were talking about ergonomic salons last week. That's how you last in this industry. You protect your hearing. You protect your lungs, you protect your skin, you protect your hands. All of these things are so important. You protect your feet, feet, feet, feet. Yeah, funny we said that at the same time. There was a there was an episode a few back where we said the word so exactly together. I left them both in there. And you can hear us both say to the syllable, whatever it was we said. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. So I left it in there. Yeah, good stuff for Chris. She always writes a good article as well. It always has valid points in it. And then cameras to code for ways to safeguard your salon and staff. Talk about a scary article.

Barbara Bird That one scared the shit out of me.

Susy That deserves one of these. I thought it was a good article. I've never had much problem in the trailer, but I do have a way to lock myself inside. And I carry bear spray that I can shoot out the window, but I don't have staff. If you've got more staff than just yourself, then you should probably talk about some of this stuff. But she did mention audio recording where one of those states that requires both parties to agree.

Barbara Bird I think Arizona is too, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Susy You can put cameras up in a sign and that's good enough, and get a lip reader maybe to read what your staff is saying about you behind the scenes. No.

Barbara Bird I think that cameras are really valuable, and if I had it to do all over again, I would camera the fuck out of my place. And I would, Especially if you're an owner that isn't on site all the time so that you have a way to check stories or check what happened when, as well as just keeping staff on the toes.

Susy And I hope to heavens that nobody has to use code words because somebody's threatening them, but.

Barbara Bird Code would frame. It came up on my I just saw that on TV. It was like on a Netflix or something. They had a code word for the woman to escape.

Susy That's scary.

Barbara Bird Terrible. It's important to know. Oh, I know what? It's the code word you use in a bar. It's. You order a, um, an angel shot with lime.

Susy Okay.

Barbara Bird Ordering an angel shot with lime tells the bartender, call the cops. I'm in trouble.

Susy That's a good one. I'm going to remember that even though I haven't been in a bar in thirty years, but except for to eat, I occasionally go through there. After having worked in corporate America and in the pizza world in restaurants. I think having two people on staff, if you can manage it, is a good thing because it eliminates theft. It eliminates people leaving in the dark by themselves to get in their car. It makes it just a little safer for those two people who are working together. I do like that. I think that's a good one. I also think it's good to have a carbon monoxide tester, especially if you're a mobile groomer, because shit happens and you cannot smell carbon monoxide. And that was Mary's whole article was get an alarm and use it. Use that carbon monoxide alarm. Because people have died in their grooming trailers. Dogs have died in grooming trailers. Grooming vehicles because of carbon monoxide poisoning. So be careful with that.

Barbara Bird Yeah, but an alarm in my little apartment right over there next to the hall closet. And I was hearing that a BB, BB, BB, BB really deep, deep. I tried to find the source of it, and I didn't know I had this smoke alarm up there, and I finally got up early enough in the morning that I was like, right along the area where it is when it went off, because I am so damn deaf that I couldn't locate the sound of this thing. So I pointed it out to Jody that the smoke alarm was the source of my little beeping in the morning, and what he did is he reached up and turned it off.

Susy Hmm. Okay.

Barbara Bird I have to deal with it. I just realize, like, we need to halt that alarm.

Susy Absolutely.

Barbara Bird Oh, like it's bad for my safety.

Susy And if you need to replace it, it's like nineteen bucks at the most. I think you get two for nineteen at Costco.

Barbara Bird That's important.

Susy Yep. He should fix that. And then we had a respect the referral article about cat grooming from Lynn. And she gave kind of this guide of when to send the cat to the vet instead of continuing on with the groom. And she said severe matting and skin irritation. Cats who cry out maybe in pain, rapid breathing, ingrown nails, signs of illness and behavioral history of failed grooms that those grooms should go to the vet.

Barbara Bird And it's okay to send them to the vet. And you need to just stand your ground and don't get super defensive over it and just say, it's my professional opinion that this is over my pay grade. This is more than what I can handle. There's. Your cat needs the next level.

Susy Yeah, and I did have a cat that that had some rapid breathing and then died four days later. Turned out there was an existing condition that the owner and I didn't know about. But I did not stop the groom because I was almost done. I probably should have stopped the groom, but I don't think it would have saved the cat, but it would have sent her to the vet.

Barbara Bird Hey, good point that she makes in that article is that groomers are people pleasers. We want to be the hero and do the job. And I remember getting into an argument on the table. Remember, I would have the people stay and help me with their cat. And I had a very old cat that was badly matted and I was able to do everything except the boots by the time we got to the boots. I felt like the cat was dating, and we had done as much as we could, and the owner kept urging me to do more, do more, do more. And I really regret that I allowed him to push me to push the cat. He just tried to make it be my job and I fell for it, and I. I'm sorry, my cat, but I did. But I did that, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one that has allowed the, uh, the owner, I mean, and I can remember wrestling a German shepherd on the floor to do its toenails with the owner, a woman that I knew from the community urging me to Go for it, get it, get it, you know, and I'm, I'm actually on my back trying to do this damn dog. I regret those situations. I regret when I wasn't strong enough to say it's my professional opinion. You're paying me to be professional, and it's my professional opinion that this is it. So one of the things that I would emphasize when I groomed cats was that when I say it's over, it's over.

Susy Yeah, cat time is done. I'm with you on that. It is not a discussion. It's a statement. When the cat's done, the cat's done. The last thing that was in the magazine was the poodle parts by Blake, where he talked about doing, like, the bits and pieces of the dog.

Barbara Bird Yeah, that was interesting.

Susy No complaints on that one. It looked like I groomed the dog. That's the only thing I looked at it and I went, oh, that looks like one of my girls. But otherwise I thought the bits and pieces part was real helpful.

Barbara Bird And then I would like to read the advertisements at the end of the articles, because there are people who can't afford the big advertisements, and so they often new products and stuff there. There's a new dog shampoo out that's claiming to be inspired by Korean beauty.

Susy I saw that.

Barbara Bird And I may approach them and see if they want to be trialled, and I'll try them out and see what it is, but I can't find the ingredients. They don't fully disclose. They disclose their Korean stuff, but they don't show what are the surfactants, what's doing the cleaning, whether the preservatives that are there. And so we'll see if they're willing to cough that information up or they're shining the cloak club.

Susy Yes. We have two schools of thought in this. We've got the disclosers and then we've got the Non-disclosures. And then there's a few that straddle the line and make fake ingredient lists or incomplete ingredient lists, or tell us what they think they we want to hear. And the truth is, we want the inkey ingredient list, the international nomenclature for cosmetic ingredients. We want those terms and we want them would be nice if they were in volume order, because there's so much to be had by that information for us, at least here at the Groom Pod. And we hope all of you guys listening feel the same way. You were going to say something about not being able to hear.

Barbara Bird Oh yeah, because there was the the TTP article. Um, I can't remember who wrote that.

Susy Chris Fair.

Barbara Bird Anthony I couldn't tell you. I did not take care of my ears. I don't know which to blame. That I was a groomer or that I was a musician. But I never protected my hearing. And either on stage or in the salon. And now I'm paying for it. It's horrible. I just missed out so much because I can't hear. I hate hearing aids. I paid twelve hundred dollars at Costco for a decent pair of hearing aids. And I hate it. And the right one falls out all the time. And my other cheaper ones, they just bark at me. And when I don't wear them, I miss out on conversations. I can't sit around a table of people and hear. Oh, and Jody's husband, manly. He mumbles very softly.

Susy Oh man.

Barbara Bird He mumbles, mumbles. He doesn't enunciate and he's very soft spoken. And I can't understand a goddamn thing that that man says. And he's the husband of my caretaker, you know. And it's totally destroyed movie night. Because I would go over there for movies and they'd put me in a recliner beside manly in a recliner. They put blankets on me, and then they would talk and we would, like, try to watch a movie, which I can't hear. So take care of your hearing. It's hell if you lose it. It's gone forever.

Susy And you take your good hearing aids to Atlanta.

Barbara Bird Oh, yeah. Thank you.

Susy Yes. Put them in a suitcase now.

Barbara Bird I should pack it up.

Susy Yep.

Barbara Bird I got myself a little a special fanny pack to wear.

Susy As the original fanny pack person. Oh, look at that. That is cool.

Barbara Bird It's a leopard skin fanny pack, and it's got two zipper compartments on the front and then two on the top. So it's got a lot of space, and I think it's going to work for me real good.

Susy As aware of the fanny pack from high school on, I've never been without one. I would lose a purse. If I had a purse, I would just leave it and walk away from it. So I just tie everything around my waist. It works for me and it always has. Hey, thanks for listening everyone. Please remember to tell your friends about the show and support our sponsors and look for Barbara at Groomed and Happy Grooming. See you next time on the groom pod.

Barbara Bird Come and find me at Groom’d. Take care of yourselves because we love you.