Question for the dog groomers out there..

[GeeGeeboy]

How long did it take you to be qualified/have enough experience to Finnish dogs? I'm an assistant at the moment, have been for year and a half. I do the bathing and drying, rough clips and a small amount of scissoring but am not at the stage of being able to finish off dogs. So how long did it take you and so you have qualifications? Ta.

 

[s4sugar]

Given that you can take a few weeks course and be able to do a basic trim at the end of it I would expect you to be able to do more than just prep work after 18 months.

I can't help any more though as I came to grooming from the show side & jumped in at the deep end with a Kerry blue terrier as my first show dog and it took me about three months to learn to trim her to show standard with some one to one sessions with breed experts. I showed stripped terriers for ten years before I started pet grooming.

 

[PucciNPoni]

Which qualifications are you interested in?

You don't actually NEED a formal piece of paper to say that you can trim dogs. There is no licensing required, and the qualification is voluntary.

However, as S4Sugar said, you can do an intensive course and learn the trims on most breeds. But learning to finish them correctly, getting the best shape for each individual dog and so on takes years to accomplish. Some people can master it quicker. But even C&G recommends that you be grooming for at least 2 years before attempting to sit the exams.

 

[CAYLA]

I started when I was at agricultural college (it was offered as an extra) we worked in a massive grooming parlour in a boarding establishment, we where mainly brushing, bathing and we did alot of theory there. I then went to night college to learn a bit more a year later with my sister as she wanted to get into it but it was literally all I had learn and in the mean time I was using my mams rescues to practice and then went on to shadow a groomer in her parlour (mams friend) for about a year and this is where I really learn to cut/trim and clip, as suggested I have really perfected my own cuts, obviously they resemble what they should but made into pet my own style clips.
I also opened up a grooming parlour as a vets approached me and offered it, I then fell pretty ill with a now ongoing medical issue, the travel and stress proved far to much for me at the time so I gave it up after about 2 years and began to clip dogs from home.
I would say it took a good year before I could confidently clip a dog from start to finish.