At 30, Tennessee's Terry Phelps traded in her medical school stethoscope
for a clipper vacuum and some good scissors and embarked on a career in pet
grooming.
"When I told my family, they said, 'You're going to do what?'
But the more I learned about grooming, the more I liked it. And there was
certainly a bigger market for groomers than [doctors] at the time," says Phelps.
But giving up medicine didn't mean giving up house calls -- they're
still very much a part of her routine. Phelps' house calls are a little
different, however, because they involve her clients coming to her house.
"I operate my business from my house. Clients bring their animals to me.
When people come here they can stay and sit by the fire. I serve coffee and
cookies and they listen to music, or they can come in and watch. It's
good for everyone involved because it's a comfortable situation," says
Phelps.
A home business is just one of many possibilities open to groomers. Some
work in more traditional settings like grooming stores or veterinary clinics.
Others, like Peter Moran, do the old-fashioned kind of house calls.
Moran goes to the homes of clients and just brings his equipment with him.
Then he sets up, trims, brushes and grooms their pet, bathes it in a sink
or tub, and finishes it off by styling the fur.
"It makes the pets and clients happy because they don't have to leave
the comfort of home. It makes me happy because my work is pleasant and I make
a nice living." Moran believes doing house calls has the added advantage of
giving him a chance to get to know his clients and their animals better.
"My particular brand of grooming brings me into the homes, and I have made
many human and animal friends. It is very satisfying to turn a dirty, smelly,
unattractive animal into a clean, sweet-smelling pet," says Moran.
This transformation is not always an easy one. The condition of people's
animals when they arrive for grooming goes from dirty to downright ridiculous.
Most pet groomers are accustomed to meeting all kinds of people, but even
the most seasoned groomers can come across an individual who will take them
by surprise.
On one occasion, Phelps made an appointment for a new customer's six-year-old
Shih Tzu (a small breed of dog). When this client arrived for the appointment,
she was pushing her dog, which was dressed in a baby sleeper and a diaper,
in a stroller.
"The woman said she didn't have time to housebreak the dog, so she
put it in diapers and clothes. The dog's coat was severely matted and
she had a diaper rash and a really nasty attitude. It was crazy! This woman
had been changing her dog's diapers for six years!"
While diapered dogs are unusual, surprises can come frequently. Happily,
pet groomers say the surprises are usually good ones.
Take the time a client brought Moran a very hairy small gray dog which
he had found.
After finding the dog, this client had kept it for several weeks, advertising
in the newspaper and waiting for the dog's owner to call. When no one
claimed it, he took the dog to the vet and it received a clean bill of health.
Then he brought the dog to Moran to clean up.
"This client was an older gentleman who had always owned handsome pedigreed
animals, and he looked odd with the rag-tag furball at the end of the leash.
He asked me to groom the dog, shaking his head at the homely animal and told
me to do what I could."
Moran worked on the little furball, grooming until he found a treasure
under all those layers of hair. "Imagine his surprise when he returned and
I presented him with an attractive, neat-looking, purebred schnauzer!"
Finding the schnauzer (about an $800 dog) under a mane of matted hair was
no small task for Moran. But hard work and concentration are a big part of
a pet groomer's job.
"There is more to this job than just playing with pets all day. It is hard
but happy work," says Moran.