here are an estimated 900 million dogs in the world and most are double coated. Approximately 80%¹ live without a home or owners and are called free ranging.² They are all short- or medium-length double coats, and a large number of pet dogs are also double coated. All their fellow canids in the wild, such as foxes, coyotes and wolves, have a medium-length double coat, which is called the “natural” or “normal” category of canine coats by veterinary dermatology texts.³

Had humans not spent millennia selectively changing dogs’ coats to serve other purposes, this would likely be the only coat type for dogs—but it is not. We have everything from Poodles to Bergamascos to Maltese to the American Hairless Terrier now.

So why is defining this basic term “double coat” even an issue for us? To precisely define what the double coat is and how it works should be important to our industry, given its universality. Yet, this most common of all dog coats illustrates a language problem we struggle with, because the term “double coat,” like some other key vocabulary words for us, is not always used by groomers to refer to the same thing.

Our pet grooming industry is not only largely unregulated, but certification through extensive hands-on testing under the direction of a master (mandatory in other trade industries), is entirely voluntary for us. Our industry has, as a result, not yet acquired the standardization of curriculum and practice that other trades have. Such standardization leads to the creation of jargon—a mutually agreed upon common vocabulary of specialized terms used to speak about technical specifics, like the words that doctors and lawyers use when they speak to each other.

Sadly, it is the dogs that sometimes pay the price for this lack of agreement on basic concepts in dog grooming. However, the more we all work to educate ourselves by attending trade shows and online events, by reading researched publications and by talking with each other about this, the more we help to build that common understanding of words we all use.

The most common misunderstanding that I hear is that double coats apply to any coat type that has both primary and secondary hairs. These different hairs are also called topcoat, or guard hairs, and undercoat.

Mammals all have hairs of various kinds that are governed by genetics. Like our skin, hairs are made up of keratin proteins and are filament-like extensions of the skin composed of mostly dead cells. In mammals, all hairs and their follicles can have different shapes, pigments, lengths, sizes and textures.

Anatomically, primary hairs have three layers. The scaly, outer protective part of the hair is the cuticle. The strong, stretchy, inner core of the hair is the medulla. And in between those two lies the middle layer of the hair, the cortex, which contains, among other things, hydration, pigment and nutrients. Primary hairs have all three of those layers. They are always longer, taller, more substantive, more weather resistant and more pigmented than secondary hairs, as well as longer lasting, often for years.

Secondary hairs lack a medulla. They are not fully formed hairs. They are temperature-regulating fuzz—a form of insulation that increases during the colder, shorter days, and falls out quickly when the days grow longer and warm up. They change their entire thickness twice a year prior to the solstices. They are always fuzzy, come in and fall out very quickly, and are not weather resistant or protective of the skin.

On a true double coat, the primary and secondary hairs are on an entirely different schedule and agenda and do not require much human interference. The primary hairs have a slow-growing or anagen growth phase, and a long dormancy in the telogen or resting phase, often for years. They come in and are meant to stay in order to provide structure and protection of dogs’ skin. The secondary hairs go from anagen to catagen to telogen and out very rapidly, several times a year. Their job is to regulate temperature.

This is why fur-type dogs can’t be cut or shaved. Only de-shedding should be done to assist in removing the undercoat as it sheds out naturally. If you shave a double coat a few times in their lives, they will likely never grow back their primary hairs, leaving only the undercoat to grow back. Skin cancer, among other things, is a danger if the primary hairs are removed. Our job as professional groomers is to remove seasonally shedding undercoat and protect the topcoat for its long-term job of skin protection.

While it is understandable that some would feel the term “double coat” could apply to any dog’s coat that has both primary and secondary hairs, it is not a very helpful term for us to use simply because almost all dogs have primary and secondary hairs. So, if that were the definition of a double coat, we could not distinguish between the coats of a Labrador Retriever, a Shih Tzu, a Poodle and a Border Collie. Virtually every coat type except smooth coats like Boxers, Dobermans, and hairless breeds have both primary and secondary hairs. The double coat is more than just the presence of those two types of hairs.

Double-coated breeds have primary and secondary hairs, as most dog coats do, but what is unique to the double coat is the natural seasonal shedding cycle of a massive amount of undercoat. This is aligned to the seasons and triggered by the change in the length of light as winter and summer solstices approach.

On wolves in the wild we can observe tufts of undercoat blowing out on their own in the spring, making way for a summer coat that allows airflow to the skin while still reflecting dangerous sunlight away. This natural double coat largely cares for itself and works well without professional grooming. Of course, if you are living with an Australian Shepherd, a Newfoundland or a Samoyed—all true double coats of different lengths—professional grooming helps keep your home much cleaner.

Wire-coated breeds like many terriers do not seasonally blow out their secondary hairs the same way. Their coats require some pulling to help their shedding cycles because of their thicker skin, deeper follicles and more complex wire-textured protective hairs. The secondary hairs of Poodles and Shih Tzus may appear on our combs as we pull through their coats, but they do not shed out seasonally like a true double-coated dog would. In fact, in most hair-type, undetermined-length coats, the secondary hairs are almost as long as the primary hairs.

The best and most basic definition of anything biological is to look at that organism’s taxonomy, a term you may have heard in high school biology. Taxonomy is a scientific naming convention that systematically classifies all living organisms, from microbes to plants and animals.

Taxonomically, dogs are a multi-celled organism—clearly an animal, not a plant. Their phylum is Chordata, which means they are vertebrates. Their class is Mammalia, which means they have skin and hair, and are warm-blooded and nurse their young, like us Homo sapiens. The order level is where we split from them; they are carnivores and we are primates. Their family is Canidae, commonly referred to as canids. This includes foxes, coyotes, wolves, jackals, dingoes, dogs, etc. Their genus, species and variety is Canis lupus familiarus (meaning domesticated dog).

The most important way we groomers can define the double coat is to ground it in that scientific understanding of its biological makeup. The double coat is the natural coat of the entire Canidae family. The double coat is, by definition, what most canids have all over their bodies.

One reason why the dog is so diverse in appearance is because they have co-evolved with us for tens of thousands of years—the only two species on Earth known to co-evolve in this relational way. We humans live in diverse climates, hunting for diverse food sources, all over the planet. The most diverse single mammal species is the dog, developed both naturally and with some human help, over tens of thousands of years to be built for those specific places and those specific jobs.

While still very present, not just in the wild but in our homes, the many domesticated true double-coated breeds that are our beloved pets—from Labrador Retrievers and German Shepherds to the longer double coats of Shelties and Newfoundlands—we groomers still have a job to do for them. We can help remove the shedding secondary hairs for their weary families while protecting the vital primary hairs to keep their natural coats functioning throughout the year. And, since we already know when these coats will need the most care, we can schedule accordingly and be ready for them when shedding season arrives!

1. Lord, K., Feinstein, M., Smith, B., Coppinger, R. (2013). Variation in reproductive traits of members of the genus Canis with special attention to the domestic dog (Canis familiaris). Behavioural Processes. 92: 131–142.
2. Gompper, M. (2013). The dog–human–wildlife interface: assessing the scope of the problem. Free-Ranging Dogs and Wildlife Conservation. Oxford University Press. pp. 9–54.
3. Miller, W., Griffin, C., Campbell, K. Muller and Kirk’s Small Animal Dermatology, 7th Edition. Saunders.

The average shop price for a small dog was $35 at the time and took anywhere from an hour to an hour and 15 minutes to complete. When I went mobile, I knew I needed to charge more than the shops, so that meant a small dog was now anywhere between $50 and $65.

At the time, mobile grooming was unheard of, and several people called me and expressed sticker shock. But it was a client that set me straight. I was sitting in the kitchen of a client that followed me from the shop. Her price went up $30, and based on the average price in the area, I was almost double for most breeds.

I felt comfortable enough with this client to ask how she felt about my pricing. She looked at me and said that I just gave her back two hours of her day. That’s the time she spent driving back and forth to the shop where I worked. She said she used those two hours to work on a book she was writing. And with her writing time being limited, those two hours were worth the extra cost.

That was an eye-opener for me. My time has value. But what exactly was my value? How do I determine what my worth is? Well, it involves knowing your numbers…

Say I want to earn $100,000 for the year, and my business expenses are $50,000. (Understand that these are random numbers based on ease of math. For this to work, you have to know what your living expenses are and what it takes to run your business.) So, the total income I need is $150,000 to clear that $100,000. I plan to work 50 weeks of the year (don’t forget vacation time) for approximately 40 hours per week.

Another option is hiring, whether it’s grooming employees (paying employees is a whole other article) or outside service providers such as cleaning companies to work at a lower hourly rate than your value.

Now I want to introduce another principle called “Deliberate Practice.” I first heard this term in the book Badass: Making Users Awesome by Kathy Sierra. Deliberate Practice is when you work on one particular skill until you master it and then move forward. The intent is to make the most of the value assigned to your time.

Instead of being exceptional, you are “meh.” You’re spending too much time on a task while not being effective at what you’re doing. But what if you took the time to master each skill or hire out?

Statistics show that when Deliberate Practice is effective, it should take three sessions to master. If it is taking longer than three sessions, you need to re-evaluate. An example would be learning how to use QuickBooks and being responsible for the bookkeeping vs hiring a bookkeeper.

There are always jobs as a business owner that you are responsible for but dislike doing or don’t want to take the time to master. If that’s the case, don’t waste your time trying to master that skill. Hiring out is the only option.

When you know precisely what your time is worth, you can make better decisions that propel your business forward rather than just wasting time and not earning your true potential.

Word got around, and she quickly added dog walks, then dog boarding, and finally dog grooming. “I thought if I can walk them, I can board them, and ultimately groom them,” Stephanie recalls. “It was a home away from home for my clients’ pets, and exactly what my clients were looking for. People trusted me, and still do. I boarded dogs for about five years, but the demand became too much.”

During this time, Stephanie started taking night classes at a (no-longer-operational) dog grooming school in Manhattan. She currently works as an independent contractor at Paws in Paradise in Park Slope, Brooklyn and also offers in-home pet care for senior dogs.

“I have a handful of senior pets and senior clients, too, and they prefer to see their baby get groomed at home,” Stephanie shares. “They say grooming shops are noisy. It makes it easy on the owner because they don’t have to travel to a grooming salon. Most of them have a table, and all I do is take my tools, including the [arm] to secure the dog. I’ll recommend specific shampoos for their baby’s skin if needed.”

A Native of Panama Republic of Panama, Stephanie grew up visiting relatives across the United States. She attended Department of Defense schools in Panama, too, which means she’s grown up bi-lingual and bi-cultural. Both are an asset as a New York resident. Since she speaks fluent Spanish, she can work with many Spanish-speaking pet parents.

She says she offers two pieces of advice for new groomers:

“First, ask yourself, ‘Can I commit myself to dog grooming for the long term?’ Also, if you start like I did as a dog walker, keep in mind there are four seasons throughout the year. Are you willing to walk in the snow, rain, and extreme heat?

“Sometimes you’ll feel like you aren’t getting anywhere,” she adds. “But don’t give up. Feelings and emotions are normal. They come with the territory. Stick with it.”

“There’s no reason to slow down. The reward is so valuable. Not just money-wise, but the trust. It puts a smile on your face every day,” she concludes.

While the personal definitions of it vary, most people know accountability by the ripple effects they see. A lack of accountability appears as delays in team performance, missed deadlines, unfinished work at the end of a shift, lack of punctuality, frustration and disengagement with the team.¹ The effects become compounded as disengagement leads to low trust and low morale—even resulting in the departure of great employees. Eventually, the lack of accountability affects the financial performance of the business.

Accountability cannot be delegated to specific team members, nor can it be forced on a person or team; they must take it upon themselves. Accountability often gets a bad rap—as if the mere mention conjures up anger between team members and negativity in the workplace. So, when you hear “accountability,” what is the feeling you experience in your gut? Do you feel motivated and engaged, or do you feel stressed and uncomfortable?

In addition, the term is often used as an excuse; “lack of accountability” is such an easy management group-speak phrase to cover any error, problem or failure to achieve a goal by the team. Before jumping to the conclusion that there is a lack of accountability on your team’s part, get them to agree on what accountability is and to understand that it is a positive word.

So, take some time to step away from feel-good gimmicks that attempt to provide a quick fix to a poor workplace environment and instead put some effort into creating a culture of accountability.

1. Lipman, Victor. (2016, March 24). The Best Managers Always Hold People Accountable. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2016/03/24/the-best-managers-always-hold-people-accountable/#1fdc5f9728c8
2. Bregman, Peter. (2016, January 11). The Right Way to Hold People Accountable. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/01/the-right-way-to-hold-people-accountable
3. The Iceberg of Ignorance. Values-Driven Culture. https://valuesdrivenculture.com/iceberg-of-ignorance/

“This would be a great time to tell you an anecdote about how arranging to have someone come to my shop to teach was very difficult and of all the things that went wrong,” Liz quipped. “Honestly, though, it turned out not to be very hard at all, and everything went according to plan. I’ve hosted a Pet First Aid class, a dog trainer Q&A, Girl Scouts Pet Care badge event, and two hand-scissoring classes.”

So, who attends these events?

In addition to Liz’s two full-time staff members, she said, “There are quite a few groomers in the area. And I’ve had groomers come all the way from Vermont for a couple of the seminars we have hosted. The groomers who want to learn are willing to do a lot to get that education.”

“The absolute best thing about holding educational events is the people you meet,” she added. “I’m not a people person, but all my best friends came from dog educational events. It’s the best way to find like-minded people with your values; people who you get to grow with and cheer on, whether that means you are cheering from the competition audience or cheering from the other side of the salon. After an event, the feedback I get most is, ‘Will you let me know when the next one is?’ I think that is some very positive input towards my efforts.”

In addition, Liz has been able to see how learning new skills affects her business. “The most popular niche service my shop offers is creative color,” she said. “We do anything from tail tips (rainbow tails seem to be a favorite) to full-body color work. And after a year of studying, we are pleased to be offering hand-stripping now, too. Vallery, one of my fabulous employees, has found a passion for it, and it is so cool to see the healthy change in the hand-stripped dogs’ coats.”

With great enthusiasm, Liz shared, “I would absolutely recommend other groomers try bringing educational opportunities to their areas. Social media has made reaching out and connecting with people so easy. Organizing events is easy; advertising events is easy. The hardest part is coordinating schedules. If you are intimidated about asking a groomer to teach a class, remember that they are just a person. Yes, an incredibly talented, successful, industry-leading person, but still a person!”

So, the next time you lament that you can’t work out a way to attend a grooming event, consider emulating Liz Jackson, a groomer from a small town in rural Maine who is making meaningful changes in the lives of fellow industry members in her area.

To conclude, Liz said, “A couple of groomers have said that they see me as the kind of dog-girl who lifts up other dog-girls. That is the person I want to be, and I’m sure hosting educational events is part of that.”