There’s a good chance you follow them on Instagram — those famous dog groomers who turn hardy pups of all breeds into perfect little poofs, big sculptural beauties, and colorful masterpieces. Although they often share their work online, we suspect there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that we don’t see. To get the dirt (because it’s obviously not on those clean-stomached puppies!), The Wildest talked to three famous celebrity dog groomers — Nadia Leeopens in a new tab, Arisa Thomasopens in a new taband The Wildest Collectiveopens in a new tab member Jess Ronaopens in a new tab — about their wildest and most unexpected moments at work.
Celebrity “brushes”, both great and…not so great
“I accidentally dyed a dog blue,” Rona told The Wildest. “Oh, and it’s a celebrity’s dog – Jeffree Star’s.” Star wanted to dye her Pomeranian a light pastel blue, and Rona used “dark Smurf blue” instead, thinking that if she just let the dye sit on the dog’s hair for a few minutes it would get lighter the result. “Which probably, in theory, could have happened,” he said. “But this was like 15 years ago, before all the dyeing of dogs started. I was one of the first to do it.” So, he doesn’t have the dog dyeing tools available today. “And so it was a big mistake on my part.”
Additionally is bad? Because the dog is a Pomeranian, “and their fur doesn’t regenerate like other coats do,” the color will take two years to develop. Fortunately, Star is nice about the blue disaster. “He is not angry; he is very kind and very sweet. He was like, ‘It’s totally OK.’ And I felt terrible!”
Lee has a lot of celebrity stories — the famous model with the matted Maltese, the comedian with multiple pets, the Oscar-winning actress with the “beautiful and badass” Brindle lookalike.
But her favorite moment was when a former professional soccer player walked in with her Bulldog, a little lady who “always had her nails painted pink, or something glittery,” Lee said. “He came in one day with his son and shut the whole place down.” He was surprised that someone of that level of celebrity would take his own dog to the groomer. “There was no security – he was like the coolest dude ever, and said ‘hi’ to everyone and took pictures.”
But Lee has also had bad experiences, such as with a “very high-profile VIP client” who will remain nameless. “She showed up an hour past her appointment time, and her dog was mated.” Mated dogs require extra time for careful dematting and detangling, and even if the VIP demands to be seen immediately, Lee has other clients to attend to. “I think one of the bravest things I’ve ever done personally was to assert myself in that moment,” she said.
He told the demanding celeb that the best they could do for him that day was to shave his dog and let the coat begin. “But he’s trying to be pushy, make a big deal.” The client then told Lee in no uncertain terms that he would no shave his dog.
“I started to get angry, and I had to calm myself down. So basically, I told him, ‘You’re right. I don’t shave your dog. We’ll reschedule you for another day.’” Lee recalled hearing a pin drop in her salon at that moment. In the end, the VIP client decided he didn’t want to reschedule, and Lee shaved his dog’s matted fur.
The groomer bloopers
“Luckily, it’s my aunt’s dog,” said Thomas, setting up the story of an unforgettable frenzy. “He really wanted a heart at the base of his dog’s tail. And I was like, ‘Sure, totally.’” So, Thomas did what he does and started working from behind on a heart at the base of the dog’s tail.
“And I was like… why doesn’t it look the way I want it to??” He arranged himself in front of the dog, to look at the heart from another place. And, well, “it looks like a dick.” Specifically, the top of the heart looks like — excuse me — testicles, at the end of the dog’s long, rod-like (sorry) body. “I was like, Oh no. I must have turned the heart upside down,” said Thomas. And her aunt wanted the dog dyed pink. “So, I dyed the dog’s hair pink, and … it didn’t look good.”
“I was grooming a dog,” Rona recalls, “and we used these clip-on combs that attached to our clippers, so you could cut different lengths.” That is, the clipper has a blade, and the attached combs make it longer or shorter. “So, I’m grooming the dog, and I take out the comb to change the length. Then I go to the bathroom.” (Rona notes that she left the dog with a fellow groomer; dogs are never left alone on the grooming table!) “When I came back, I was like OK, ready to go!”
He zips the clipper up the dog’s back — without inserting one of the adjustable-length combs. “And it shaved off a patch — like a big patch that’s normally hairless, right on the back of the dog.” He left the patch on and groomed the rest of the dog normally, and luckily the human client was okay with it. “The client is very sweet. And I was so apologetic,” he said. “Yes, that was a mistake.”
Thomas has another story that, well, just read it. “I had a client that I had been grooming for years, and her dog was pregnant,” he said. The puppy’s parent did not inform Thomas and his team that the dog was pregnant until she came in on the day of her appointment. “He came in, and he was like, ‘Hey, my dog is pregnant. Will it be an issue when you groom him?’”
Since the client told Thomas that the dog had not been pregnant for a very long time, he decided to groom her. After bathing the dog, Thomas brought him to the table and began to groom him. “Then another groomer walked by me and was like, ‘What’s that?’” And “that” was a puppy. Yes, the dog gave birth on the grooming table.
“He is calm. He gave us no hint of concern; he wasn’t even breathing,” said Thomas. After searching to make sure they hadn’t missed any puppies by mistake, the client took her dog and the puppy to the vet and all were healthy. “And from now on,” said Thomas, “I don’t drink pregnant dogs.”
The “shearing”-ly disgusting moments
“I had full-on projectile diarrhea while I was drying the dog,” says Rona. “Where, the dog is pooping, and the blow dryer is a force dryer, and it’s … spraying everywhere.” This is not a rare occurrence, says Rona. “I feel like that’s probably common. And anal glandsopens in a new tab splashed on you.”
Lee agrees that the unfortunate situation of blow-dry-diarrhea happens all the time. “Another common grooming experience is dogs urinating on the table while drying off,” says Lee. He believed it was because they were nervous about the sound, or the feeling. “So, the dog urinates or poops, or has diarrhea. And then it seems, because we use a blow dryer, it ends up splattering on the wall or the floor,” she says. “It’s a pretty gross visual, but I feel like people really need to know that this is what we’re dealing with — like, a lot — that we’re not showing on social media.”
Contact with people who bite
“All groomers will tell you that the worst part of our job is dealing with entitled clients who don’t understand that grooming doesn’t take 30 minutes,” adds Lee. “Or sometimes, their dog isn’t used to grooming.”
He says the super-calm dogs you see on Instagram usually show dogs who are good at grooming and do it regularly enough to not stress them out. “It takes hours to prepare and groom these dogs — hours. And this requires a dog’s cooperation and their willingness to stand, because they have to stand for a bath and dry, and they have to stand for a haircut. Sometimes, human clients don’t understand how much effort goes into the process. “It’s really a team effort between the groomer and the dog.”
Another common issue is getting haircut inspiration photos of completely different races. “Sometimes people show me pictures and I’m like … you have a Yorkie, and you want their hair to look like this Standard Poodle?” Lee said. “I was like, ‘You have one Yorkie.’”
Thomas recounts that experience. “Clients will bring a Yorkie or a Maltese, right?” he says. “But none of the inspiration photos were from that breed. The Yorkie client came in, and they showed me a picture of a Poodle and said, ‘We want this haircut to look like this.'” So, that was he has to ask: Do you realize that this is a completely different race?
“They were like, ‘But I want this.’ And I’m like, ‘But I can’t do that.’” At this point, Thomas will try to figure out what elements of the inspiration photo might actually translate to the dog he’s taking care of — maybe a rounder head, or a rounder one. to snort. . “And they were like, ‘Yeah, but I want it to be soft and poofy.’ I’m trying to work with them but, yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
And then there are people who don’t understand that, sometimes, denying or changing a request is the best thing a groomer can do for a dog.
“I hope pet parents understand that as much as we want the dog to have a good experience, there are some things we can’t do,” Lee said. “Maybe your dog may not have a perfect haircut, but having a good experience is more important than the haircut. It’s humanity or vanity; that’s what groomers always say. It’s very important for pet parents to know that the beauty is more than a haircut. It’s about the dog’s well-being.”
