NW Grooming Expo: Brusher/Bather Certification

So I went to the NW Grooming Expo in Tacoma this week! It was interesting! I learned a lot in the brusher bather certification course, actually. It was rather interesting. Though it was really disturbing how many people didn't know some of the basic information being taught. Like how to clip nails. And where the quick is. And what the "expert groomer" teaching the class said kind of angered me. "Well it's where there's a V in the nail. Clip on the tip side of that." Uh nowhere near the quick. And if the nails are relatively short.... Uh oh hey. No v. At all. And all of the people who had no idea, terrifyingly around 9 people of the 23 person class, were amazed and felt like they now knew how to do nails. When they'd get nowhere near the quick in any way.  It makes me sad. Because old dogs won't get their nails short and their long nails can and likely will hurt their poor arthritic feet. 

I did learn a few good things though! Which is nice. And to not wet down a dog before washing it and just go straight with shampoo if a dog stinks because the smell of the shampoo will overpower and help get rid of the stink. The stink got onto them while they were dry, most likely and the hair was dry and easily absorbed stink in the first place. Especially for skunk stink. And to shampoo a dry double coated dog, use the hv dryer on them for about a minute, shampoo again, hv dryer for about a minute, then condition them and then rinse and them fully hv dry them and it should get rid of a loooot of hair. I'll hopefully be getting my certificate in the mail soon! 

However the salon certification sucked. A friend took it and it wasn't clear that you wouldn't get certification straight out of the class. You have to throw hundreds of dollars at them and take tests and make videos of grooms and everything. But that wasn't specified.  And everything that was taught was taught in the petstore that we work at's grooming academy. So it was useless to people who have gone though our grooming academy. I haven't at this point so it probably would be interesting to see the notes, which I'll look at. But don't think it would be worth the $149 that was paid.