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This chapter is dedicated to all the little farts out there that have had a piece of me. May they forever rest in peace.

Yep, these dogs are all gone now finally so I can write about them.

I do find that these little ones with attitude never do die. They live to be 20 and beyond. I find all my wonderful little doggies that I truly enjoy grooming always die early and take a piece of my heart with them when they do go, but not the little bastards that end up really getting a piece of me.

I have a muzzle for these particular dogs to wear. Eventually you have to take it off to do the face and muzzle area and that is where they end up getting you every time.

In my younger grooming years I was very quick to get away and nearly always got by with a near or complete miss. As I grew older my reflexes just weren't as fast as they used to be or else the backyard breeders were breeding a super fast nipper designed to get the groomer.

For all of you groomers out there reading this, have you ever noticed that the little creeps that bite you are always the ones with the green teeth. You know the ones that have never seen a vet for a tooth cleaning in their entire long lived life.

The first one I will tell you about was a toy poodle. When she first came to me she sported a little lamb clip with a sweetheart mustache and goatee. During those early days I was able to muzzle her and do about everything with a minimum of problems. With her goatee I could grasp her there with my left hand and brush, comb and scissor without being bitten.

As she grew older and her teeth got really bad the owner began to feed her soft food and it would always end up caked in her beard and even a human nose could smell her coming quite a ways off.

So, I began to give her a much shorter beard and mustache, eventually going to a clean face all the way around.

As the owner spent the summers in Florida I never had to groom the dog until they returned again in the fall. I don't know how you Florida groomers did her but I can say truthfully that when she came back for her fall grooming she would behave so much more worse than before she had left.

With age this dog became wise to the whys of the muzzle. I had to sneak it on by slipping it down from behind her head so she could not see it coming and make haste in applying it to her face. Sometimes I would miss if I was too slow. My age slowed me down, but her age seemed to speed her up. She could strike like a rattlesnake with much accuracy.

Finally at the age of 17 she had her last dental and the rest of her teeth were removed. This made my job a whole lot easier. She could gum me all she wanted and I would not feel a thing. But tell that to my reflexes as I found myself still dodging her toothless mouth.

Another dog that I dreaded seeing, a Maltese, also went to Florida but for the winter. He was about 18 when I finally told the owners I would not do him again. He bit me twice and like the poodle, was quick as a snake and had horrible teeth.

There are not too many dogs I have had to let go because I just did not want to do them. This was one and it was only because of his age that I let him go. I did him for quite a few years every four weeks and each time he got worse. He not only tried to bite me but got himself so worked up about it that I was afraid he would have a heart attack.

When a dog hates grooming so badly that his health becomes an issue I won't do the dog. This dog actually foamed at the mouth and attacked you from the time he came out of the cage until you finished putting the bows in. I dreaded his appointment.

The one thing about working with difficult dogs is that I never back down from them once I start on them. I may have to throw a blanket or towel over a bad dog to even get them out of the cage, but I will not let the dog get away with any actions they try on me. The simple rule in my shop is “Humans are in charge here, not the dog!”

Not all problem dogs end up being problems in the end. The two you have read about here are the worse I have ever done. There were others nearly as bad, but I managed to turn them around and in the end they made wonderful clients. Trouble was I was the only groomer in their entire life that could groom them. If they were taken to another groomer it was only once and then they were back in my shop and they lived their life getting their grooms with me.

If you are going to be a dog groomer sooner or later you will be faced with a difficult dog and I do think that the biters are the worse case scenario. How you handle it is up to you and I am not saying you should turn them down, but try and get to know the dog first and find out if you can overcome the problem as some of these difficult dogs can become your best clients.