GroomPod 475 the Groom’d experience with Melody Coleman transcript

GroomPod 475 The Groom'd Experience with Melody Coleman

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

Barbara Bird Hey, Suzy, I can't wait to tell you all about my experiences at Groomed in Atlanta, and I want to share. My friend Melody is here to talk about her first experience in the competition ring. So we're all about Atlanta today. Over in here in Greenville, South Carolina.

Susy Well, welcome to episode. Welcome to episode four hundred seventy five. Sorry, everyone. She got excited. Uh, of the group had recorded on March twenty second, twenty twenty six, and from the streets of Greenville to the stage in Atlanta this week, we are recapping groom twenty twenty six with Barbara Bird and her special guest, Melody Coleman, like you just heard, and the mobile pro sorry dog distracting me. The mobile professional who took her standard poodle into the ring for the very first time. Let's get into the suds. What's new this week is brought to you by Best Shot. 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 dot com. Grooming success begins with best shot in your tub made from the best stuff on earth. What's new this week is my van. My van is new this week. I'm so excited.

Barbara Bird It makes a big change.

Susy It was hard. It's a hard change.

Barbara Bird Change is hard.

Susy Yes. So I love my friend Sharon. She's awesome. But how do I politely put this? I don't think she listens to the podcast. She's not the brightest bulb in the block. As I said, sorry, there's a lot going on here. This will be an exciting podcast. That's all I can say. Um, anyway, she came out. I had yet a fourth generator fail. It was like the world telling me it was time, right? I borrowed two generators from the neighbors. Both of them failed. My two were both broken, so it was time. So Sharon, in an emergency phone call, brought the van out. Without getting it detailed, I said, just bring it. I need to go to work. Please, because I'm not going to go buy another generator. That would be silly. So yeah. So yes. Oh, you're trying to hear.

Barbara Bird Very.

Susy Well. Okay. Let me see. Okay, folks, we're going to turn this up. There may be some editing in the beginning of this. Just clean this up a little bit. Um, anyway, uh, so they came out, we hung out, she walked through the van and showed me everything and apologized because it was dirty on the outside. The inside was just fine. There was nothing that needed to be done in there. But outside, yeah, there's some moss growing on it? Stuff like that. But inside. Beautiful, right? And then I said, okay, let's do the title. And she said the the title. Oh crap, I forgot the title. I'm like, oh God. Okay, that's fine. It's fine. It's all good. We'll just. Tom, her husband says, well, we'll just come out tomorrow. Again and bring all that stuff. And I said, okay. And then I said, where's the extension cord? Don't I need to plug it in? And she said, oh, oh, the extension cord. Because it's got a thirty amp. I don't have a Marine thirty amp pigtail here. I just don't have those. I don't have a collection of pigtails. So I didn't have a way to plug the van in. But as it turns out, I really don't need to plug it in because I run it on the generator and it recharges the battery that way. But when it gets to be winter, I'm going to need to plug it in. So no title, no, uh, no power cord. all of her stuff. Still in the van. She took the table.

Barbara Bird Away from everything, right? Yeah. Just like so long.

Susy I don't think she gave it a second thought. I think she was just here. Use the go ahead. This is it. So I didn't have anywhere to put my stuff in the van, so I did get her. I convinced her to before they came out to pull her table out, because I knew for sure that I was going to use my table, but I figured that the equipment that she left behind because I thought she'd at least take some stuff to groom at home because everybody wants to do a little grooming. Nobody just wants to walk away. And she doesn't either. She wants to do a little grooming at home. She, um. Yeah, she just left everything. So I started putting stuff in bags. I have like ten bags of. I still haven't even come close to getting her stuff out of there. She pulled the table, told her she should put it in her shed, and then she can groom in there. And then I started to put my stuff in, realizing that I don't have any room to put my stuff because. There's a lot of stuff in there. And then I go out to the first appointment and my friend, my neighbor, the girl I ride with comes over to see the van because she's as excited as I am. Mind you, I have not told anyone. Maybe I told five people that this was happening because I want the joy of the surprise of when I pull up and I'm having it. That's the best freaking. Well, no. Yeah, that's one of the best parts, is pulling up to the house where they expect the old trailer. And I'm in this because it really is beautiful. Van. And, uh, Cheryl comes over and says, you know, your tabs are bad. And I went, what? My tabs are bad. They're over a year old. So I'm working in a van that has bad tabs. Now, luckily, I'm in the state of Washington and they don't write tickets or arrest anybody for anything here.

Barbara Bird So talking about license plate tabs.

Susy Yes.

Barbara Bird So she has a date with her?

Susy No. They've been in Chicago. I never even gave it a second thought. Right. Obviously, she didn't either. So here we were. Anyway, so it's a little like cooking in someone else's kitchen. Like, you know, that's the bathing beauty in the tub and the table and the, you know, the dryers and stuff. But all of the things are in different spots. You don't know where to put your cutlery. You want it to be near the dishwasher, but not too far away from the sink. And hopefully they're in the same neighborhood. But yeah, so putting everything away has been kind of fun because it's definitely purpose built. My grooming trailer was built by a groomers husband. He did like six of them, and mine was the sixth. It's also the only one that was still on the road. But it's not like this. It's not like a commercially made van. Melody, you have a handy van, right?

Melody I do.

Susy Yeah, did when you moved into it. At least nobody else's stuff was in there, was it?

Melody Yeah, unfortunately, that was all taken out. So. But I will say I had been in, um, Wagon Tail's vans before. So when I got into the van, it was definitely different. Trying to figure out where to put stuff and how I wanted to organize it. You know, I like that I had more options. But yeah, it it took me it took me a few rounds of putting stuff and having stuff fly across the van a few times before, before I figured out where everything should go.

Susy So my biggest problem was my table and the ramp to get the big dogs because I added, I got this table that goes all the way down. Now. I added a bunch of big dogs. Then I move into a place where I'm going to have to lift them up and I'm like, crap because of my lips. You can't bring the ramp over the end. So I had to turn my table perpendicular. So I walk into my van and the table is right there, but it's working for me because to sit down and grab your stuff without having to stand up every time, you got to kind of do that anyway. but I love it. So the first thing that I found out after the very first bath is you really have to manage the humidity. I was never I never had tools to manage the humidity, but my grooming space was not attached to my driving space. So I opened the little door and the whole thing is like a fog bank up there. The windows I have to sit in the, in the in the driveway and fire up my defroster and just sit there. And then people are like, why is she still in the driveway? Because I can't see. So I had to learn about the fans and the windows and the cross-ventilation how that all works. I finally got it all figured out and the fan working and wow that thing. For the first time ever. I walked in in the morning and there wasn't water on my scissors. There was no condensation on my blades. It's magic. Magic. And then I was like, oh, it's a little cold. Turn the heater on. Oh, wow. It heats that space up like so amazing. It's just really cool. It drives like a champ. It's, uh, it's more it's more difficult to drive than the trailer truck combination because the truck is in such good shape. It's really a solid driver. And this has a little bit of a sloppy front end. We'll fix all that later. But yeah, let me just say big success and people are flipping out. But I think it's much more expensive to run. I'm going to just say that without knowing for sure. I cannot do a gas mileage check because the generator comes out of the gas tank too. So when I fill up gas, I've got gas and generator combination. So I don't know what my gas mileage is. So I don't even know how bad it is. But I know I've had to fill up every day to top it off, because apparently if you get it below half that, it'll shut your generator down so they don't want you to run out of gas. I mean, that's what it says in the manual. So that's a shocker. That was a shocker. Seventy seven dollars yesterday to fill up slightly over half a tank. So I choked on that. But we are once again in Washington and our.

Barbara Bird Gas is not even my vehicle. Yeah.

Susy Exactly. So, um, it has graphics on it. It's the original owner was called the business Vava Groom and she had a nineteen twenties motif. So there's a flapper on the side of the van in a short skirt and like six inch high heels. And I looked at it and I said, what is it I'm selling here? What the heck? There's there's a name across the front. It still says Vava Groom. And then across the back are two really cool dog window decals that are just amazing and I love them. There's a doodle back there. I wish that was something else. And then there's that. Uh, I can't remember. Oh, I think there's a border collie. So there's a border collie and a doodle on the back. Black and white. Just beautiful renditions on the windows. Um, yeah, I tried to take the shop vac out. That was a little tough. So there's there's differences, but all in all, definitely a huge upgrade. So I think I'm going to raise everybody's price though to cover the yeah. The difference. Yeah. After I pull up and after they see it and after they get impressed. It's so clean inside. I can keep it so clean compared to the trailer. I am loving it. The trailer was great at first, but about year fifteen it kind of started to go downhill as you know, as expected. But what I do, what I can say is this van has very low miles, and I'm convinced that the way it's built, it will last me the next fifteen or twenty years of grooming that I hope to have. So yeah. So anyway, let me, um, just give myself a ding because I moved on. I actually took.

Barbara Bird A.

Susy Step.

Barbara Bird So proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I was afraid you were not going to like it, that you were going to be stuck in that trailer and not want to change.

Susy The gas mileage is a deterrent. The whole having to fill up every day because we don't live near gas stations. I have to go out of my way to get to a gas station that isn't the one that's off the highway and has the dollar more a gallon price, because it's right off the highway. I have one of those near my house, but I've got to drive twenty five minutes to get to a reasonably priced gas station to. And depending on which way I go, I might not even pass a gas station. So that is a little tricky, but I I'm loving it. It's great. So Let's move on to our first appointment because I am so excited about this. You love grooming, but the business side? Not so much. Between the constant phone calls, the no shows, and the messy calendars, it's hard to focus on the pets. Meet groomer the all in one software built specifically for salon, mobile and house call groomers. Let clients book online twenty four over seven. Send automatic text reminders and manage your payments all in one place. Spend less time on paperwork and more time doing what you love. Start your free trial by putting groomed pod twenty two in the coupon code at groomer. These are our sponsors. They make it possible for us to do our show. Not to mention you guys on Patreon. We appreciate you very, very much. That helps a lot. You've been to Atlanta Pet Fair a few at least a few times. Barbara. Melanie, how many times have you been. Is this your second, third, fifth, tenth?

Melody Um.

Melody Probably I haven't counted, maybe like fifth or sixth time I've gone.

Melody Something like that.

Susy I love that show. I really appreciate it. They do. Um, even the new people are doing a pretty good job. So what was the whole vibe in there, you guys? Was it, uh, excitement? Was it busy? Did it feel full?

Barbara Bird It was, it was, it was well attended and it was full. But, you know, for me, the funny thing is the, the last. I mean, I was at groomed briefly two years ago and kind of went around and, but I didn't internalize it in the same way as I did this time. It seemed smaller to me. But the last show that I went to before just stopping by groomed was Super Zoo Twenty fifteen. And once you've been to Super Zoo, every single show after that seems small, you know? Um, but. It was happening and there are still too many scissors still to, you know, it's just, um. There's the sharpener in the elite scissors. And then there's these crowds of people around the ten dollars scissors on the corner, you know, and, um, and what people do is they go and buy a couple of good and expensive shares and then the next day they go to the cheap shares and buy more shares. I mean, groomers are sheer fucking crazy. Just nuts for their shares. And oh, and I had a, I had a shares experience because Curtis handy. So I went in as a member of the Hamby engineering team. And I had a vest made for me that had handy on it on the back. As an educator and it was, it was all glittery and very cool. Ashley Handy did me right. So what was I saying? God, you're.

Susy Having a sheer experience.

Barbara Bird Oh, so, so Curtis Handy had a. He promised me to have wheels at at groomed because I knew that I wasn't going to be able to stand and walk for three days. I thought maybe I could do it for one day, but you know what I. I rode down with Jennifer Bishop Jenkins, who had a wonderful conversation all the way down and stayed in the hotel across the street from the venue, and I walked around in the morning. But it was even though it was just across the street, it was like five blocks because he had to go all the way around to the front of the venue. And by the time I made it to the booth, I was done, my legs were done, my feet were done, you know? Um, I knew yet what? Wow. So I had expected a scooter.

Susy Oh.

Barbara Bird That's what I had requested. But I didn't get a scooter. I got a motorized chair.

Susy Oh, well. That's cool.

Barbara Bird It was cool, but it was hard to drive.

Susy I bet there's a learning curve.

Barbara Bird Hard to drive. It had this little teeny joystick. It's sort of like a mini penis. Oh, yes. It didn't have a joystick. You could grab hold of. And it was this little teeny penis. Nae nae nae nae nae nae it around. And it was very sensitive. And I would jerk me around and I would go. And then the motor and everything was behind my butt. And so. And the most of the space of the, the, of the thing. It had this big rear end. Let me just say that had no front end. That was me in my crotch coming at you. And that's what I felt like. I just felt like I was like strapped in. I wasn't even strapped in, but I just felt like I couldn't I couldn't fit my approach at all. It was just like, here I come.

Susy Oh my gosh, that's a visual. Barbara's crotch coming in.

Barbara Bird I'm the only one that saw it like that. But I saw it like that. I felt it like that. I said, I mean, and because it had me, it had me slightly leaning back, which I guess they thought was a comfortable position for a paralyzed person.

Susy Well.

Barbara Bird Then here I am. Right, right, right. The crutch and.

Susy All you needed were the stirrups.

Barbara Bird Right? And this little teeny mini penis joystick that you had to push to go forward. You didn't pull it back like you usually do with a joystick. So all my training from whenever I had done anything with joystick before in my eighty six years, which wasn't much, but nonetheless I was used to pulling it back. So I was constantly going backwards when I'm supposed to be going forwards. And then I had to figure out how to hold that little thing so that I would turn gracefully. And I was mostly like a fucking drunk driver in coming down here. Student driver. I would just yell, student driver coming through and.

Susy What an adventure though.

Barbara Bird So then speaking of share. So then I'm going around and checking all the booths. So I saw scissors after scissors. So I come approached this um, scissor booth and they've got scissors all put out in like fun designs. You know, they weren't just like parallel to each other, but they were like in different forms and stuff. And it made the scissors look really exotic. And I thought, oh, and there's these two Japanese persons and older man and a younger woman and their it way in the back, sitting very politely in their little seats. And um, and one standing and I come busting in there and I start looking at the scissors and picking things up and I said, oh, these are nice. And they showed me and they had one table was all thinners. A lot of thinners. Thinners are so big. I remember when you had to search and search to find a thinner, and most groomers didn't even know what a thinner was. And now they got whole tables full of thinners. And then on the other side, they had the regular straight and curves like it in there. And I realized that I got to turn around. to get back. And so there wasn't enough room in between the two tables for me to do a u turn. I had to do, like, parallel parking with the tiny penis.

Susy Oh. What an adventure. What an adventure.

Barbara Bird I came dangerously close to knocking the whole fucking thing down.

Susy Yikes.

Barbara Bird And I finally. And I just couldn't. And you. And you just couldn't get it to move. Because as soon as you moved, it's one way your rear end moved to go bump the table behind you, right? Oh my God. And I, you know, I tried, I was stuck there for five minutes and then I sort of had a little mini breakdown and I raised my hands and I said, oh, I'm sorry, but I can't get out here. I almost ditched the ditch the ride and walked to the. To go get somebody to come and drag the thing out. Now I was determined I would get. But I was right up against the side of a lengthwise scissor laden table going out. And boy, the Japanese were so nervous. They were laughing nervously. He. You know, like it wasn't funny for them, but they had to laugh because you just don't. There is no crying. Groomed.

Susy Definitely not shopping and crying. Oh yeah. Okay.

Barbara Bird So I got out of there. But I mean, I almost knocked at the whole table of scissors. Good. Jesus. That was my first day.

Susy I'm glad you didn't. That was lucky.

Barbara Bird But, boy, I you know, like, they didn't wave at me when I went by again. They they just like, no, no energy towards me at all. You know, no.

Susy Eye contact right.

Barbara Bird Now. Oh, God. 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. So, uh, right across from us, right across from the Han V van booth was a booth of shampoo and grooming products called So Posh. Did you look at it?

Melody I kind.

Melody Of scroll by, but I didn't.

Melody Say.

Barbara Bird They were European. So it was this man and his girlfriend or wife or whatever. He's kind of scruffy. He was one of these. Kind of. Better than you scruffy European men. Hey, there's a type. He wasn't. He was it? But he smiled at me and I thought, you know, so I like that name. I'm going to go check it out. So I went over there and I'm handling the bottles, and I noticed that the labeling is off. For one thing, I took a jar of conditioner and it said the ingredients were hydrolyzed wheat protein, vitamin B5. And panthenol. Well, panthenol is vitamin B5. So the three ingredients, two were the same thing. So there's two ingredients and this thick cream. So I said, well this isn't the truth. And by the way, this is this. I tried to tell them and they're European. They didn't quite understand what I was saying. And they were saying, well, my labeling people. Well, tell your labeling people that they need to edit and correct their labeling. If you're going to be successful in America.

Susy You know, and sell to an educated crowd. And that's what we're hoping that people are learning these ingredients.

Barbara Bird And the. And the truth is, of the ingredients that I, that were clear, uh, their products were very nineteen nineties, very just sodium laurel sulfate, uh, the cocamide DEA cocamidopropyl betaine, that's kind of the universal pet shampoo engine. And they were just that they were just ordinary, very ordinary, um, shampoos, uh, from me, but they had this exotic from Europe thing. So people were in there buying.

Melody Mhm.

Barbara Bird And, um, I, you know, I didn't ask for samples. I didn't, I didn't even try to go there because they were kind of not that friendly. And I'm sure that it was because of me. First of all, look at me. I am one of those Americans with that color thing going. And, you know. Plus I so I got right down to the nitty gritty and I don't think they wanted to go there at all. And so they, they just wanted me to shut the fuck up and go away and which I did, and I didn't come back and I didn't, I didn't stop anybody from going there. But somebody texted me and said, what do you think? And I told them very ordinary. Um, you know, and the. And unfortunately they had set up. So everybody, everybody that knows how to market their shampoos, knows to put the products in the front of the booth where people are walking by. So people, these people, you had to enter their their space, their European space. And they had the products all in the back of the booth on shelves. And, um, and they weren't real. Come on along people, you know, they were just kind of standoffish European people. And, and then if you got in there, they would, the woman would sell you something, you know? I just thought it was an unfortunate kind of miss for them. That was their own fault. You know, they could have sold those products. Those products had a certain appeal. The name is high end ish, you know. Uh. And, um, uh, they had an attractive booth, but it was set up wrong, and the guy was kind of, uh, a, a turn off. Most of the men that were in booths were friendly, outgoing. Men that wanted to engage with you.

Susy In theory, it's their job.

Barbara Bird The group was very friendly. It was very friendly. Um, I spent I spent a great deal of time on Saturday in with the marketing director of Groomer's choice.

Susy Oh, really? Good.

Barbara Bird Really? He wants to come on the pod.

Susy Okay.

Barbara Bird And he wants to assure everybody, like, in fact, he wants to assure everybody that they're not going to change anything about the show season products. Um, it's in that.

Susy Would make me feel better.

Barbara Bird You know, and, and he, he wants us to send him a link to the podcast with Sandy that we did. And he, um, he gave me his solemn word and handshake that he wouldn't, uh, he said no, he said what happened with other acquisitions is that they are acquired in order to. Um, re remake them in a more profitable, Uh.

Susy What they did with I groom. That's what the people did with groom.

Barbara Bird And they. They needed to do that with I groom because I groom was not. In spite of their growing. They were not financially succeeding because some of their ingredients were like too expensive for their price point. And their price point was high. So, you know, like so of course, what these business people wanted to do was to remake that. So they redid a lot of the formulas, took out a lot of the what they thought were redundant ingredients, but which I thought were the jewels of the line.

Susy Right.

Barbara Bird They took those away and made it a more affordable line to manufacture. You don't need to do that with show seasons. They they have streamlined their management, their price point, their costs. They have been doing that for years. And, and when Covid hit, they they got real serious about that. They changed their, um, their whole where they got ingredients and everything so that they can't get, uh, um, blocked and shorted and all of that kind of stuff. So they, they have a really profitable setup already and they have products that work that are beloved by all.

Susy That's for sure. Yep.

Barbara Bird And they're not going to change them. And he gave me his word and he wants to come on and broadcast it to the world. Okay, so we'll have him on. Good. Another person who was just, like, really interesting was the guy in charge of coat defense.

Susy Oh, yeah. They're very popular in the horse world, let me tell you. They're really popular.

Barbara Bird So they also, um, were very grateful once I introduced myself, they were very grateful for the good word of mouth that we gave them. Um, they want more, uh, they, they want me. They want me to use the shampoo. I took the shampoo and I looked at it. I said, oh, the reason that I didn't use it was because the main cleansing surfactant is a liquid soap. And I have issues with soap and dogs because of the high pH. He didn't know anything about his pH. He said, well, will you measure my pH and get back to me? I said, yeah, I'll do that. So I'm going to do that. And, um, and I told him the story of how Jodi had wanted to brush my dogs. And so he had taken my dog with a yeasty skin and tried to remove all of this, all of this Gabby stuff. That was the yeast and it made her skin go. Red. I mean, dogs create scabs and scales and stuff like that to protect a leaky skin barrier. And he removed that and immediately the inflammation just jumped tenfold, right? So I, you know, like, well, what do we do? He said, well, I grabbed the coat defense powder and powdered them down real good that night because it was already evening by the time we realized what had happened. And I powdered them down real good. And in the morning their skin was fine. It wasn't like healthy, but it was no longer inflamed. It just like brought that down. And ultimately these scabs will shed when their job is done, you know? So. He just, like, went crazy over that little story. So I want you to tell that story to our camera and I want to use it. And he said, can you do it now? I said, no, I've got other people to confront And I. Gotta do my job here. And he said, oh, come back tomorrow. I'll put you on film. And I want it to be fair for you and blah, blah, blah. And so I just ignored him and I, I went away and then Sunday I'm at the creative ring getting ready to watch the fabulous creativity. And he finds me, me again. You know, now he is a, a guy. He was fun because he had flirty eyes, you know what I mean? Yes, I love to flirt.

Susy I'm not an eye contact person though, so I don't notice flirty eyes. I'm always looking over like over somebody's head or at their chin. I'm not, I got that.

Barbara Bird I just like eyeball them. I just like, you know, and I know that when I look at a guy that's got twinkle in his eye, I get a twinkle in mine.

Susy I believe that, and.

Barbara Bird I can be having a perfect business conversation. And I, you know, my dimples come out and I did, he, he told me I can't. He, he told me I was a shining. Meteorite of a. Person.

Susy All right.

Barbara Bird And and that I was special, you know, and, uh, so he also told me that his shampoo with a higher pH from the soap has people with. He says, you know, like what I learned at the show, Susie, is that the South is the home of doggy yeast infections. It is the Mecca of doggy yeast infections. It's all over. It's why the vet immediately went to. This is a an environmental allergy and treated the dogs like that. And it's why probably my change of diet. I went through so much trying to find really a diet with no chicken in it at all, and I fed it and it didn't make any difference to my dog. Um, and it's probably because this is the pollen capital and um, just like I now have asthma, they now have yeast skin and yeasty skin is common and a lot of groomers that have yeasty skin dogs have told coat Defense that there's shampoo works. And that could be because I happen to know scientifically that yeast doesn't respond to an acidic pH like bacteria does. Bacteria doesn't want to be in a city. It doesn't affect yeast that much. It doesn't help get rid of bacteria, but yeast doesn't like alkaline and coat defense shampoo is alkaline. And I will give more information when I get a really professional name for that product. But that's that was fun. And that was good. I also spent time I stopped by the funky poodle.

Susy Yeah.

Barbara Bird And I loved their booth because you had to like go inside their tent. So it made it kind of woo woo. Here we go. You know?

Melody Yeah.

Barbara Bird Yeah. Like a tiki hut. They also had some people outside with a table and dogs and stuff. But but all the products were like inside the tent and you had to go inside there. And they had, they had products packaged with their little sunglasses. So that was a real, um, catch, you know, like, oh, I want to buy that packet and they buy, you know, like three shampoos with the sunglasses on them. And, um, those people were very gracious to me and so grateful and so happy to see me. The man gave me the biggest hug and he dragged me around to the front of his booth, where there's a huge logo on a silver background in front of his booth and took selfies. And. Oh, boy. I mean, once the selfie people say, is that Barbara Bird and they come in? Oh, can I have a selfie? Sure. And then. And that would cause a little rustle. Who's that? Who's that? You know. Oh. It's Barbara. Oh, Susie. I just had a woman after woman come and say I listen to you every week. I just love you and Susie. I want to thank everybody, too. That came up to me and said, yeah, yeah.

Susy Whichever side my heart's on the whole.

Barbara Bird The whole trip was very affirming. There were people I went to Dr. Davis Booth. Now Al Davis was there, but I wasn't quite prepared to dance my old dance with Al Davis, who just, like, Doesn't want to give me credit for anything. But anyway, I didn't want to. I just felt shy. And so I went to that booth on Sunday when he wasn't there, and the woman remembered me. And the woman told me that maybe my conversations and my nagging. I think she used that word nagging al about ingredients have kind of paid off. And they're starting to to disclose more and more ingredients, she said. We now have ingredients on all of our bottles. Well, I looked at our bottles. Now they do have what looks like a complete list on their brand new well, it was new a year ago. Sarah, my shampoo that I was interested in and she coughed up a bottle for me to take home. No problem. Gave me a lovely water bottle.

Susy Oh, nice.

Barbara Bird In my bag. And by the way, my friend. Um, my friend Marg that we met at the tent show two years ago. She was my sidekick all weekend.

Susy Good, I love her.

Barbara Bird She was afraid that we wouldn't have time to hang out. She hung out with me all weekend, and she was my sidekick and my assistant. And Marg, I love you for it. It was just made the of the weekend so much better with her help and kept my energy up and kept me going. And um.

Susy I totally dig her. She's awesome.

Barbara Bird Yeah. She's awesome. So I looked at some of the bottles of Davis and yeah, they are disclosing, but they're also not disclosing much. So they're doing descriptive ingredient lists, you know, cleansing surfactant.

Susy But the newest product had it all though, right?

Barbara Bird But this new product, this ceramide special ceramide shampoo had all of the ingredients very simple. And I'm going to give that a try and I'll let you all know what I think about it. And, um.

Susy So you also you went into chat with Doctor Phil. Doctor Phil.

Barbara Bird Doctor cliff.

Susy Doctor cliff. Sorry.

Barbara Bird Kind of going up to Doctor Phil. Well, yeah, I did that the first day. That was a high priority for me. And he happened to have a booth that was kind of on the back side of the booth, just separated by a tarps, right. curtains. And I went around there and I just like aimed at him with my chair right up and said, hi, I'm Barbara Bird, and he was so happy to meet me. And he, he was forthcoming. He was gracious. He was friendly. Um, apparently he doesn't know my nickname for him. Uh.

Susy He.

Barbara Bird Uh, we talked about chlorhexidine together. He's also, he says veterinarians are doing a bad thing with the. Because the veterinarians are using chlorhexidine even a lot more than groomers do. And, um, he he he he's up on He's knowledgeable about the mic. Antimicrobial resistance problem. That's global. And I talked to him about it. Uh, boy, I talked to Groomer's choice about it. They didn't even know about that. They Groomer's choice said, I want you to evaluate, um, the the ingredients of our new medicated shampoo. And he handed me a bottle and the top ingredient was chlorhexidine. And I said, I gotta tell you, chlorhexidine I think is doomed. Um, because it's, um, a big problem, a big part of the microbial resistance problem. That's a global, uh, international crisis because these ingredients are creating superbugs who are then resistant to antibiotics. And if an animal gets a common urinary tract infection. They get common infections and nothing will cure it. And we're losing people. They lost five million people in a decade. And it's just getting bigger and larger and larger in scope. And this is affecting the animal veterinary medicine as well as humans. And, um, the, the human medical people are now thinking about withdrawing human medicines, human antibiotics from used by veterinarians so they can better, um, handle the.

Susy Be more effective.

Barbara Bird Yeah. Be a better steward. Stewardship, stewardship. You know, like so again, we're going to tell people if you're using chlorhexidine, I'm not going to diss you for it, but please use it when you know that there's something there that can be killed. Now how do we know we don't? We don't have that. That's what happens with in the veterinary field. They, they it's used on assumption rather than by diagnosis because sometimes the diagnostics, uh, take too long or too expensive. So on. So, so even me, when I went to the, um. What is it called? Urgent care. I went to urgent care with these asthma attack things. She gave me an antibiotic just in case. That's the kind of thing that's creating the superbugs.

Susy Um, yeah.

Barbara Bird Yeah. You can't do you can't do antibiotics like that anymore. It's creating superbugs. And, um, so let's just be more conscientious and use our medicated shampoos when we're sure that there's something that's, um, there to kill and use them with full ten minutes. Don't do three minutes. Five minutes. Maybe if it's a, a hairless breed, but dogs with coat, you need to leave it on in order to get that chlorhexidine chance to like drain through the coat and get to the skin. That's all. Did you happen?

Susy Did you happen to. Did you happen to talk to the people from Zymox? Were they there?

Barbara Bird I talked to them. Um, yeah, I talked to them And, uh, I told them where I'm at with all that they were. They were kind and impressive. I don't think I brought anything home from them because I'm not seeing it. The other people that were just really grateful to hear from us were the Equus people. And it was the same guy who's the son of the original, um. God, son of the original man who started the company. And I came home with some avocado mist and, um.

Susy Joe. Is it Joe?

Barbara Bird I'm just looking at it to see if there's any. Joe Leggio but it has no silicone. Um. Anyway, it was a just a great hole. Great. Uh, of course I went and chatted with, um, Dave, and I made sure that he gave Mark a bunch of goodies.

Susy Nice.

Barbara Bird Uh, you know, Mark got to feel what? Feel what it's like to be my sidekick. You know.

Susy There is plenty of room on your coattails for both of us. If Mark wants to hop on there with me, I'm all for it. Absolutely.

Barbara Bird Any other questions?

Susy Yeah. Did you see the neck dryer?

Barbara Bird I got it, I got it. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Here it is. Yeah. I got the, um. No, I didn't see. There are a couple of these. I got this one. It's the, um.

Melody Your.

Susy Pet.

Barbara Bird Pet plus two hundred freaking dollars.

Susy Like, excuse me, I just threw up a little in my mouth there.

Barbara Bird Like, I didn't even try to get one straight from China. Um, my, my hair is a bit of an issue.

Susy I wondered if my hair would even be an issue. Your hair would be too. You got it.

Barbara Bird You got a ponytail. It's going to be okay.

Susy Okay.

Melody Yeah, I bought one, too. So I've been using it in the van.

Susy And.

Barbara Bird You know. And it's got good. I mean, for what it is, it's got pretty good volume, wouldn't you say?

Melody Yeah.

Barbara Bird Yeah, I, I was impressed. Let's see. Um, we can show you.

Melody Yeah.

Barbara Bird Here, put me in there and see what happens. I haven't really learned this. It's got some different settings.

Susy Here pointed at me. Let me feel it. I made a joke. It's fine, I said. I said, pointing at me. Let me feel it.

Barbara Bird Look at my hair. It's so long, I, I. Oh man, I'm loving it.

Susy Yeah. It's good. It's still bright. Oh, yeah, I can see that. Is it lit?

Melody What?

Susy Does it have a light?

Melody Yeah.

Melody So it has a light. It's like a it's like a UV.

Melody Is it?

Susy Oh, okay. Yeah.

Melody Look like the skin condition.

Barbara Bird You can.

Melody See.

Barbara Bird The skin. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's, I, I think it's good and I can't wait to use it. The other thing that I got that I came home with that's going to be put right to use. I knew that great thing. Okay, Randy, fix my shoes. And we just dropped them now. They're in the case.

Susy Oh, hammock. I've got that one. That's the littler one, right?

Barbara Bird Marco and Little are about to meet their maker. This is going to help me so much. But I you know, I was disappointed. I told handy they had a, um, stuffed animal dog on the table. Uh, for center of their display. And they had a hammock, a rear end hanging hammock on him. But you know that three piece rear end Strap is they could have a bunch of them if they had just displayed it. It was like hanging in the back of with all this other stuff and it was like folded over so you couldn't even see what it was. And I said, you know what, that strap, you might not want to go into the whole hammock, but that's strap has saved my butt more times than I can ever remember. And, um.

Susy It's much more versatile, especially because you can drop one side and work on the side of the dock, and it still keeps the dog in the same place.

Barbara Bird Of the, of the rear end too, because, um. You know, um, but I, you know, I agree it's easier. Um, I think you need both.

Susy Yes, but, but the majority of my dogs are the t strap, not the hammock. The hammock is only for a minute, probably one percent.

Barbara Bird I use the strap on just about everybody. And I know you do.

Susy Yep. On everybody.

Barbara Bird So, um, and then the other, the other thing that I had to get on them for, they had a display of the bathing beauty because I was set up to be the bathing beauty, um, salesperson.

Susy The bathing beauty beauty.

Barbara Bird The bathing beauty. Thank you. Yeah. So the bathing beauty, they had a little tub set up in it. They had the bathing beauty in it and they had the water halfway up to the. Yeah, halfway up the damn pump. And then they had a layer of sediment two inches high so you could barely see the thing. But they had this big frothy mess in there, and there was no way that I could really demonstrate the value of the bathing beauty because it doesn't require so much water and you don't need to have it be sudsy. In fact, suds can choke the thing. It looks like they put just shot of dish soap or something in that thing. I gotta talk to Curtis about that because, um.

Susy Yeah, that could be marketed much better.

Barbara Bird Lugging that display around and setting it up, they need to set it up in a way that it's going to be more effective. So that's what about that?

Susy So did either of you guys see anything new and exciting that we should know about, or was it just, you know, that like the newest thing I can think of is that neck dryer has been real popular, but nothing else has really jumped out at me from a viewer standpoint. But you guys were in the room. There was nothing really new ish. Excuse us while Barbara dies over there. Don't do that. Are you okay? Yes.

Barbara Bird That's what this is for. Yes.

Melody It's going to make us a deal we can't resist.

Speaker 5 That's right. Hey, Bob, do you want to watch? Sure.

Barbara Bird I'll be.

Melody Okay.

Susy Okay.

Barbara Bird So I did, and I did give away a few facts. I think you probably heard about it.

Susy No, I didn't that that. No, that got cut. So. So you can tell them about it now if you'd like.

Barbara Bird So I found these on eBay. They're little teeny books.

Susy Yes. Turn it the other way. Turn because you're because you mirror image. There you go. There it is. Perfect. Now we can read it.

Barbara Bird Why can I read it when I turned around? But you can't see. I can read this. Where is it?

Susy Oh, maybe it's just my screen. Well, either way, you've covered both directions.

Barbara Bird But anyway, um, I gave away a few books.

Susy All right.

Barbara Bird I'm glad they were a hit, but I, you know, like, I was kind of discreet about it.

Susy Okay.

Barbara Bird Excuse me. Actually.

Susy Good. So you did spend a few minutes with Randy and Cheryl from Precision Sharp.

Barbara Bird Didn't you get with Randy?

Susy Okay.

Barbara Bird I gave Randy my scissors and told him that somebody else had used them and broke them, and, oh, I, I did. The other thing that I bought I didn't is I bought two. These are the.

Susy Flowers.

Barbara Bird Cool bows that are made by the women in Peru they're sold by Groomer Direct.

Melody Pet store to.

Susy Pet store direct.

Barbara Bird What is it?

Melody Yeah.

Susy Pet store direct.

Barbara Bird This is the other kind that are blue and purple. Ooh. I thought that that was different. Of course, I don't have any scissors here when they need them.

Susy Any other show and tell stuff that you've got sitting next to you.

Melody Um.

Barbara Bird I was reminded that the. Oh, I remembered that the the eco survivor is an excellent. Um, yeah, it is a you are using the puppy.

Susy No. Maybe it keeps Maisy's main spectacular. And it smells so nice that when people ride behind us, they're all going, what is that fantastic smell? And of course I want that for my horse. So that's how I keep her beautiful long mane and tail untangled and free of debris. And it's the best. It is the best. I. I use the max in a spray bottle to, you know, for maintenance. That's cute. Yeah, I like those.

Barbara Bird Yeah, yeah, I got these. These are also from the women in Peru. And you know, a couple of years ago when I first got wind of these and bought them from, um, pet store direct, uh. What was I thinking?

Melody Uh.

Barbara Bird Wait a minute. Give me a minute. Oh, I approached them. I mean, it's really bad when you can't remember the last half of your sentence. It's just.

Melody Like.

Barbara Bird It's really hard. It's it's hard. It's hard to. How do I explain it? I can't I just say, excuse me. And then sometimes it comes. You know, I, I had to remember the, the name of the doctor, that of my cardiologist because there's a some very important prescriptions missing from my package. And, um, it took me hours. It took me all day practically.

Susy But you got there.

Barbara Bird Her name, but I did. Okay, so these are the the bows from Peru. And I think it's just way, way cool that we can support these indigenous women sitting around making bows in Peru, in school and in making a buck. You know, I think that's so cool. I will always. I don't even have a salon anymore. And I just had to buy them because, hey, it's too cool to the the exchange factor. The cultural exchange, the global nature of it is just too exciting. It's just the kind of thing that I would have loved as a kid.

Susy Did you guys go to any of the social stuff?

Melody Yeah, well, we went to, um, Friday night. They had the networking event. So they had tables out.

Melody And.

Barbara Bird That was inside the lobby. That was fun. Oh, they had line dancing. Yeah. I couldn't do it. I was, I was, you know, there was my fantasy in front of me and I had to let it go because I just couldn't even stand up. Oh, look at this. Happens to be.

Susy Boy, you're full of f words today.

Barbara Bird Oh, here, I'll put it on this finger. There we go. This is. I'm just. I'm showing off these. Look at these. I gotta wear the.

Susy You can put it on your glasses.

Barbara Bird Put it on my glasses.

Susy Oh, yeah. Right on the on the right there. I would do that. Then my headphones would prob. Well no I guess it would fit. Yeah. I like that the people on the side are getting a good view. The Or right here right in the middle. Then I'd be looking at it all the time. I don't know if you could get it on there.

Barbara Bird I don't know how to. I would have to know what would be the along?

Susy Yes. Moving along. We'll take a break right here. And I'm going to remind you all to get your stuff sharpened at precision sharp.

Speaker 6 From the street and the curve to the bend in the chunked. If your shears aren't precise, then your finish is bunked. The bobcat is smooth and the lynx is a beast. Give your tired hands a holiday or a permanent feast. Slide the thumb ring forward. Slide it way back with precision sharp tech. There's nothing you lack. Lightweight design means no more hand pain. Just a flawless coat and a whole lot of gas for the engine. Stay sharp. And the fit? That is true. Precision sharp has the perfect pair for you. Shop the Lynx and Bobcat at Precision Sharp Park. Com.

Susy Let's see what's happening at the grooming table. So Melody, how was your first competition?

Melody It was very exciting. Definitely a little nerve wracking.

Melody Um, why.

Susy Did you choose a standard poodle to go in for your first time? I'm. I just my mind is blown by that. I mean, you could have picked any breed and you bought a standard poodle and then headed into the hardest of all the competitions. I know.

Melody Go big or go home. Right?

Melody No. Um.

Melody No. So actually, um, I've done a little volunteer work with, uh, Carolina Poodle rescue. So great organization up here in the upstate. Um, they take in, you know, predominantly poodles and doodles. They've got, you know, a few others that kind of come in. Um, but I had gone up and done some grooming, took my van up and I actually had groomed this dog. He was getting ready to possibly be adopted, and he was a little puppy about maybe three months old at the time. So I was actually getting him groomed for his adoption. And I always just said, man, I was like, I just, I wish. And he's a black and white party poodle. And so I was just talking. I was like, man, you know, if, if, if something doesn't, you know, work, right? I was like, I would take him home in a heartbeat. And it just so happened, the rescue is about an hour from where I live. So by the time I got home, got inside, I got a text message that say he wasn't adopted. Are you interested? And I said, I will put in my application right now. So, um, things just kind of happened to line up that way. And.

Melody You know, of all the.

Susy Of all the difficult choices, and especially when prep means so much that Doug has a ton of prep to do.

Melody Yes.

Barbara Bird Yeah. She learned that.

Melody Yeah.

Melody So I mean, on average, it's like when he's, you know, been in, you know, good coat. I mean, it takes like a good like two hours for me to get him like really bathed up and then to get him completely blow dried and fluffed out and then do like, um, the little bit of like prep that you would for competition, which would be, you know, shaving the feet and, um, like it's sanitary and stuff like that. So we've, he just turned a year old in, was it, it's March. So last month, in February he turned a year old. So we've been going through coat change. So, um, the last time that we prepped it took us about closer to three hours because every time we turn around, here's a little mat and here's another little mat and having to pick at those.

Melody So you brought.

Susy Your van, right? You brought your own stuff, your own van.

Barbara Bird Who judged you? Guess who judged her?

Melody Well.

Melody Well, let me tell you this at first. So I also groomed. I ended up spending a lot of time at the Wagga booth, which is the World Alliance of Grooming Associations. Um, so right now I'm the president for the South Carolina Professional Pet Groomers Guild. And then.

Melody I.

Barbara Bird Advise her.

Melody And Barbara is one of our advisors. So.

Melody Um, we're very fortunate to have her on board with that. Um, but I spent a lot of time at the booth because Wagga kind of is, I kind of say it's like an overarching umbrella.

Melody Yeah.

Melody So they kind of help out with all the state associations. They've been helping us get started and going. And, um, Teri Dimarino is part of the board for Wagga and Judy Breton. So they were spending a lot of time at the booth, and I had the puppy with me the first day on Friday. And and I was asking, um, Terry a question. I said, Terry, I said, um, could you kind of look at, I said, I'm, you know, I'm having some struggle with like, um, getting his crest right here. And she's like, yeah, let me, um, you know, look over your dog. And so she said, what division are you in? And I said, I'm entry level. It's the first, you know, competition I'm doing. And she said, oh, great, I'm going to be your judge.

Susy Well, that was convenient.

Melody I know.

Melody So I had a momentary, um, panic attack and, um, and realized that she told us, uh, there were thirty eight groomers in the entry division.

Barbara Bird In the class in the entry, my.

Susy Goodness.

Melody Just in entry. So they actually had to have, um, two judges and they kind of split the class in half, so Terry was judging half. And then, um, Shannon Shannon. She was judging the other half. So, um, so Lord bless them because I know it took a long time to get through all of the judging with so many.

Melody Wow.

Susy But okay, so as a first timer, what are the, what are the hurdles? What would what do you wish you knew before now that you've been through it?

Melody Well, I would say.

Melody Um, I was fortunate in that one. I kind of had a friend that I was going through it with. So, um, shout out to my friend Chris, um, and her standard poodle. And so she had competed in like freestyle the previous years. So I kind of got some, you know, feedback from her. And also she had introduced me to some, uh, we did a couple of like mock competitions. So we traveled to like salons and did, um. Did those. So I mean, it's really great because you, it's basically set up like a competition, but it's a lot less pressure, a lot less people. So and you get a lot more one on one and feedback. Um, but I think that would probably be my thing that I would recommend to anyone that's going into it for the first time is, is definitely see if you can find some of those mock competitions near you and some people are even doing them online. So, you know, it's like you don't even have to travel. Um, but I think.

Melody I.

Barbara Bird Can get feedback is that.

Melody Yeah, yeah.

Melody And some of them will do. Um, like one of the ones that we did actually did placements. So it was very similar to an actual competition. You got like a ribbon, um, and a placement. And then another one was just, you know, very, just kind of basic, like, hey, we're going to groom your dogs and then the allotted time and then you get the feedback from your judge. So, so those are very helpful. But I think one of the biggest things that I kind of wish I knew beforehand is just the amount of time that you do have to dedicate. So, you know, it's like when people talk about, you know, you're going to be spending like every weekend, you know, you're going to be bathing, you know, maintaining your dog. And, um, especially, I think in my case, like where I had a puppy that goes through code change, it's like, man, like I skipped a week and that was not a good idea.

Susy Now we can now we know what our people are saying. Well, this just came up over the last week. Well, it might have actually real.

Melody Yeah. Like I've.

Melody Totally sympathized with some of my clients now because when they've told me like, I swear I brushed him two days ago and then now this.

Melody Mask popped up.

Barbara Bird Now you can believe him.

Melody And now I believe him, I do.

Susy Did you have an assistant at the ring to, like, go get stuff? Was your friend competing at the same time? I know you had Barbara. Barbara was there.

Barbara Bird But I. But she was in the middle of this pack of people. I you know, like I couldn't even wave to her. You know, like I could, I could watch as things shifted around her and I'd get a glimpse, you know. Um, I saw her sitting down for a while. I said, oh, good. Get off your feet, you know?

Melody Yeah.

Barbara Bird And, and you know what? Some, some of the people, they took their dogs off the table and put them down on the grounds to get the crest. The back of the crest. Right. You know, I thought, oh that's smart. Mhm. Um yeah, I, I.

Susy Have to do that. I did before the new table because I'm only five feet tall now. I didn't start out there, but I am now. And so the putting the big dogs, my standard poodle, on the ground so that I can do her head, that is really helpful. She's huge. Yeah. So did you learn great things from the critique?

Melody I did so in funny because we were talking about like prep. And one of the big things, um, that Terry had commented on was that. Was my prep. So, you know, and it's like, you kind of go into it thinking like, you know, like I got this and, um, but no, I was actually.

Barbara Bird And it wasn't anything that you could see. No, you know, I mean, I lived with that dog and, and it went in the ring the next day and I knew she'd been up all night prepping it. And I, and I, you know, and I looked at it, he looked perfect. Yeah, but you get into that coat.

Melody Mhm.

Melody Yeah. And surprise. So. So.

Melody Yeah. Surprise.

Melody Yeah. There's some areas like where he's got. It's really dense because of where that coat change is happening. And so what happened was the coat was actually air drying faster than what I was velocity drying. And then when I went back into fluff dry, I didn't really rewet the coat enough. So it wasn't straightening all the way out from the root. So it was kind of like it was straighter on the ends, but down underneath it had just enough, a little bit of a kink to it to where like, especially because I use the snap on combs to set the patterns and, um, or set my lines. So when that comb would come down like on his flanks, you could see where it was kind of jabbateh for lack of words.

Barbara Bird Part must have just fallen through the hole.

Melody Fuck, yeah.

Melody Yeah, there may have.

Melody Been a there's.

Susy Another another f word. So what did you how early did you have to start? Because poodles are like eight in the morning aren't they.

Melody Yeah.

Melody So we had to they started prejudging at seven fifteen for Sunday morning. Um, so since I had my van and, um, I kind of, I prepped the night before, so I was in the van from like around ten o'clock at night till about one fifteen in the morning, uh, getting him ready, picking mats out. So, um, and then like I said, my friend Chris, she hopped in the van early in the morning to get hers ready. And, um, we hightailed it over there and just kind of like with trying to get over there and get parking and everything, it took longer than we thought. So we barely made it into the ring. Um, when they were getting ready to close the prejudging. So pretty much I walked in the ring, put my stuff down, put them on the table, and then.

Melody There's Terry right in front of me.

Melody Ready to judge my dog or prejudge. So, um, a little nerve wracking. So I would definitely say that if you're going to compete, make sure you give yourself plenty of time. Um, that way you can get in there and get set up and feel relaxed and not rushed.

Susy The prep time takes a lot, but you don't ever really add in what it's like the morning that you're competing and all of the stuff you've got to get to the ring and do the prep and do the prejudging and stand up there. And for me, there was a little too much time for the wrong size dog. I had an Airedale and I finished him too early and I picked away at him. That was the only dog that I did that was other than creative, I just and rescue. Yeah, I picked away at my own groom and wrecked it because it was just a little, much too much extra time. So there's my tip to people. Leave it alone. When you've got it, leave it, leave it, leave it. So will you do it again?

Melody I'm planning.

Melody To. So you know I'm good. It's like, even though. Like, I don't see myself as like a career competition groomer. Um, just the process of being able to learn new things and challenge yourself is so worth it. So, and you know, and I know people like worry about like, oh my goodness, I'm going to get up there and everyone's watching me and seeing what's going on. But I mean, it's really true when you hear people say like, you're so focused on what you're doing and your dog, like nobody's really looking at each other, you're just focused on your groom. Um, and what's going on with that. So, but I think, I mean, it really comes down to, um, it is a lot of fun. You know, it's like you get in there and you're able to really kind of challenge yourself and see what you can do. So whether you get a placement or not, like, like, you know, I didn't get a placement and there were definitely things I could have done better. But I still realized like, that was one of, you know, the better trims that I had put on him. So I was still proud of myself for that. Um, and just kind of watching the process of the journey too.

Melody So, so I wonder.

Susy I wonder about how the younger generations, because you're one of those and even younger than you who go out there and compete. For me, as a kid, I was a gymnast and I had coaches from the age of five till I was twenty years old, telling me what I was doing wrong and that I was overweight and that, you know, whatever, whatever. I took the criticism and I'm able to take criticism as an adult. It's a different world today. So how was taking the criticism? Did you handle that? Okay. Did people around you seem to do okay with that? I'm. It's something you have to learn.

Melody Well. And I think kind.

Melody Of in the same respect because like I grew up, I'm a classically trained pianist, so.

Melody Oh, there you go.

Melody So I've had a lot of the criticism, you know, coming from.

Melody Being from.

Melody Being a musician.

Melody So yeah. Um.

Melody And even, but even after all those years, I mean, sometimes that can be hard, but I think if you go into it thinking rather than someone's criticizing me as, what can I learn from this? And I'm the kind of person too. I'm like, be easy on me. Give me something good along with the bad.

Barbara Bird So be gentle.

Melody Yeah.

Susy Yes. You need the the compliment sandwich. Compliment, critique, compliment. Yes, yes, yes.

Melody That's what I tell you about the Oreo.

Melody So.

Melody Um.

Susy Yeah.

Melody Yeah. So so I mean, for me taking the criticism isn't, you know, that's not really a hard thing, but I know for some people it is, it is really hard. But but I think if you look at it with that lens of this is something I can learn and grow from, then it's a lot easier.

Susy It's one of those things like certification. People are always debating whether it's worth it to spend the money and the time for certification, because you think it's just the day you certify, but it's not. It's months and months of prep on the dog. It's the learning. It's the tweaking and adjusting. And then it's the taking of the criticism and the corrections and stuff. And it's about the learning. It's not about being butthurt because somebody told you your crest wasn't good enough, right? It's about learning. So certification isn't I mean, it's very cool to have the letters, but it's about the journey of grooming and improving that hopefully all of us, you three, us three included, and everyone listening to this is striving for constant improvement till the end, till you die with the scissors in your coffin, which is how I plan to go out. So yeah. Thank you so much for being here, Melody. It was a pleasure. And I want to have you back on because it's fun to talk to you. And Barbara, as always, you're the queen. I'm glad you had so much fun. It was so hard to be here and watch and not be with you. But it is, you know, for me to go to the East Coast, it's an extra two days on top of the show to travel. I've got to travel for a whole day to get there. And I got to travel for a whole day to get back. And right now that was a little difficult. Although you never know what's going to happen in the future. Hopefully we'll get to meet up somewhere in between. That's a little closer, like maybe Rocky Mountain or Texas or something like that, somewhere where it's not a whole day for me to get there. So anyway, thanks for watching. Let me know if you like the videos. We're planning on continuing to do them. And they're fun, but they're also hard for me because I have to let the mistakes go through. And I hate that I can't control every bit of the podcast. So I will also put them up on the audio as well. I'll do the last one and do this one, but I'm not going to edit them much, just a little bit. And um, I think that's it. Somebody is on their way right now to detail my new van. So I'm going to call it a day. I know he's going to be here in twenty minutes, and I need to move it out into an appropriate spot where he can get to it and do his thing. So happy grooming everyone. See you next time on the groom pod. And from my lovely co-hosts, Barbara.

Barbara Bird Hey, take care of yourselves. Because you know why? Because we.

Susy Love you.

Barbara Bird And depend on you. We need you.

Susy And Melody, say goodbye.

Speaker 7 Oh, bye.

Susy Thanks, everyone.

Speaker 7 Talk to you soon.