What Makes Hound Therapy’s Grooming Academy Different From Other Programs?

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Welcome to Tales Talk Grooming Chronicles with Health Therapy, the podcast where we talk all things pet groups, daycare, academy, and more.
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Hosted by Shannon and Tanya of Health Therapy, serving pet owners across North Texas.
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We're here to share expert tips, hilarious pet stories, and the inside scoop on keeping your furry friends happy and healthy.
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Our motto, humanity over vanity.
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And don't worry, we don't fight.
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Let's get started.
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If you've ever wondered what sets Hound Therapy's grooming academy apart, today's episode breaks down the philosophy, the training approach, and the heart behind the program built on humanity over vanity.
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Welcome back, everyone.
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I'm Sophia Yvette, co-host and producer back in the studio with Shannon and Tanya, professional groomers at Hound Therapy.
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Hi, ladies, how's it going?
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Fantastic.
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Great.
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Well, let's get into it.
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What makes Hound Therapy's grooming academy different from other grooming programs out there?
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Well, let's just say that all grooming schools are not the same.
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Um, period.
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If you're looking for grooming schools, they all sound really, really familiar.
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Um, you've got uh hands-on training, dog behavior, safety, breed-specific grooming, and career preparation.
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You hear all of it.
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And here's the one thing that you need to ask yourself.
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And I just I feel so passionately about this, which is why we opened our school in here.
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Yes.
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Um, for the amount of hours that we did.
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It's it's a lot of time and dedication here.
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Um, you can see with our our other student, you know, grooms that come in here, we've talked about those and we talk about how how much work it takes for us just to help a pet parent and their dog.
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In here, we're teaching all of that.
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And there are schools, they uh our school is 1,500 hours.
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Most schools that the state says is an accredited school for 480 hours, that means you're basically your other thousand hours are on the job training at somebody else's shop.
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You're just released, you have a certificate.
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The things that you need to ask yourself is, you know, are you are you worried about getting to get your certificate so that you can get to work?
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Or do you want to learn how to do this job correctly and safely and provide a good service for these animals?
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And and that's the kind of people that we are looking for.
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And that's that the type of students that graduate from here when they go to get jobs, they know this job.
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They are ready, they feel confident, and 100%.
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I just cannot stress enough at 400 hours, 300 hours, and most of those are not even in-person hands-on training.
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They're online.
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You cannot learn this job online.
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You you just cannot use it.
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Um I will say you can use um some video help to learn this job, but as far as like the basics, things like that, you really just you can't.
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Even if you have a video, you have to have dog practice on and it's gotta be a live dog.
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I mean, you're learning on uh you've gotta learn everything, dog behavior.
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Um you we do this in real life in real time with people in the lobby.
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You learn how to check in, you have to understand what the client is asking for.
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You have to be able to match your grims, you have to be able to use scissors safely, use clippers safely, use the amount of pressure, understand and identify codes and types.
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Uh there is so much to know.
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It's repetitive.
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You have to do it.
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And if you don't do this on a daily basis, we require three days a week, at least if you minimum.
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If you can do the four or five, you'll learn it that much, that, that much faster and pick it up that much, that much better.
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Everybody struggles with something that you have to kind of find what your hurdle is, but you're not gonna learn it by watching a video and having a a little dog on your table and then trying to convince somebody that you know you're a dog groomer.
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Um, and unfortunately, the state of Texas doesn't feel like you need any education at all.
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Um, and then they've deemed, you know, that they'll help you pay for 480 hours of it.
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It's just absolutely mind-boggling to me.
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And I mean, you can there are grooming schools where th they'll have you learn on a model dog and everything goes fine and dandy until the dog starts moving.
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And then you have no idea how to correct it, how to restrain it, or it hates its feet being touched.
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Yeah.
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What do you do if a dog moves?
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W what do you do if it isn't perfect?
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Um, what do you do if it's scared of the dryer?
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How do you how do you confront a client um about a matted dog?
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Um on a model dog, you don't get any of that.
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Uh well, and and nor do you get that in 480 hours of not all in school personal training with 50 other people in your just don't understand.
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Uh and you know, we we've done we're we've done this podcast because we've been looking into um, you know, comparing with other schools, maybe opening up another school, doing some other stuff that we really feel passionate in what we do.
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We love working with the animals and and we want, we want to give it back.
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But there just are uh there just are not every school that we have seen that has popped up within the last two years, and there were none, there was maybe one that have have popped up within the hound therapy, they're 300 hours, they're 400 hours, they're yeah, they they are not teaching you what they are telling you that they're teaching you.
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So I would say re-ask, what are you out to get?
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Are you out to get a diploma?
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Are you out to get um a career?
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So, Shannon, how does your curriculum support students who learn at different paces?
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We learn, we we do alternating enrollment for us specifically.
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Uh so if wherever you are, once you've completed what you know how to complete.
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So some people pick up bathing faster, some people pick up scissoring faster, some people clip up, pick up clipper work.
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And and I'll be honest that some of it, if you start in the wintertime, you usually pick up scissoring first because the coats are longer.
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If you start in the in the in the summertime, down to a breeze, you learn how to how to how to keep those blades cool.
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But everybody learns it.
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And I have never seen anybody that hasn't.
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We we have a year that is dedicated to teaching you.
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We do not go away anywhere.
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We are here.
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You can stay here a little longer.
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We are always here.
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If you get a job and you need to come back and and practice on a specific breed because you don't do it very often, we all we we are continuing throughout your entire career.
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We don't ever just leave you alone and hope that you know you've got it when you're done here.
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I've said it once and I'll say it again.
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Your dogs are not guinea pigs.
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No, no.
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And we have about one instructor per student at all times.
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So it's it's I mean, you really it's if we were to hire somebody to work here, I would pay them and I would teach them the same way that if if you're coming here to work.
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You are learning how to do this job from the ground up.
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Um, and without there being any kind of role models that are willing to teach the secrets, the trades, how do you do this?
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Where do you buy your blades?
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How do you, how do you sharpen them?
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How do you handle a client?
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How do you handle a dog?
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Where do you get?
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We handle all of that in here every day.
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And we are happy to share our experiences with you.
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And so we do.
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And we want to produce people out there that that want to learn how to do this in the right way.
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We want to, we want to give them that opportunity and that chance, but it takes every bit of one year to get the bare minimum down.
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So I'm so curious, how does the knowledge that you both have contribute to the wisdom that you've integrated into the grooming school today?
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Well, I mean, we have over a hundred years of experience at this job.
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I've been doing this for 45 years, and you know, I've learned from failures.
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So we teach you almost what not to do uh versus what to do is almost just as important in here.
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So you learn from our mistakes.
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And yeah, I mean, I've been doing it for about 10 years.
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I don't have anything on 45 years, but I've been doing it for about 10 years, and I'm a self-taught groomer for the most part.
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Um, I mean, Shannon gave me all of her old equipment and I was like, yeah, I can do this.
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And I pretty much taught myself, and I did it all wrong for a very long time.
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And and she and she was with uh somebody who actually um was a very good groomer who took the time to teach yourself how to use some other skills.
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But not everybody has that opportunity.
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Yeah.
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Um, you you can't there there are not a lot of grooming schools available.
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So you have to almost you have to pass it forward if you're a good groomer.
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But here's the thing every groomer grooms differently.
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So what is what is standard?
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What what is what is normal?
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What looks good to you may not look good to somebody else.
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What is your normal isn't somebody else's normal.
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So we try to teach all of that.
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We have so much, we have younger, we have older, we have a lot of experience in this shop.
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So we try to hit it from every, we target it from every angle, if that makes sense.
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It's you know, it's uh you learned here, I learned here, we learned here.
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We have it all under one roof.
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And we really we don't just dictate this is how it's always done.
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Because it's that's not that's not how this business is run.
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Well, thank you both for breaking down what makes your academy stand out.
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Always powerful to hear the heart behind the program.
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We'll see everyone next time.
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That's a wrap for this episode of Tale Talk with Hound Therapy.
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Ready to book your pet's next groom daycare stay or grooming academy tours?
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Call us at 469-367-0009.
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That's 469-367-0009 to schedule an appointment or visit us online at www.houndtherapy.com, serving North Texas with expert best care.
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Until next time, so stay quacked.