Episode 34: At-Home Grooming Hacks

This week on the Good Dog Pod, Allison Alexander joins Laura Reeves to talk all-things grooming. Allison is an esteemed groomer in the dog community ready to provide the audience with her top tips on how to keep your dog healthy, clean and matte-free at home.

The three key skills covered in this episode are how to bathe, brush and trim your dog's toenails correctly. Even though these may seem basic, there is no shame in being new to the grooming world and learning how to do it. Everybody learns.

Allison shares her Secret Hacks to grooming:

1. Vinegar Rinse. Having trouble removing the shampoo from your dog? You can put a 10% vinegar rinse, leave it for a minute and it will help rinse out shampoo out of there.
2. Listerine in water (10% dilution): wipes stink off. Gets shiny and removes dandruff.
3. Scratch test - before you use any brush on your dog, brush it against your arm. If it scratches you, you should not be using it on your dog.

Transcript

Laura Reeves [0:39] Welcome to the Good Dog Pod! I am your host, Laura Reeves, and I am super excited to introduce to you guys one of my very favorite people in dogs. This is Allison Alexander. She is a world-famous groomer. She is a representative for a grooming product company. She is going to teach you guys all kinds of amazing things about how to keep your dogs clean and healthy and mat-free at home, all by yourselves. Welcome, Allison! I’m so excited to hear you.

Allison Alexander [1:15] Hi, Laura! I am so excited to be part of the Good Dog Podcast! 

Laura Reeves [1:20] Excellent. I want us to talk today about a couple of really basic things. We’re going to talk about bathing: how to bathe your dog, how to brush your dog, and how to trim your dog’s toenails. Those three things. If we can do that at home, think how much better everybody’s going to feel and look. 

Allison Alexander [1:38] Exactly. Those are very basic things, but something all dog owners—even I had to learn that. There’s no shame in the fact that we don’t know how to do these things. 

Laura Reeves [1:48] Everybody learns.

Allison Alexander [1:50] Right. Everybody has to learn. Everybody has to start somewhere where they are going to learn. We used to not wear seatbelts. We used to not know how bad second-hand smoke was. A lot of people thought you shouldn’t bathe your dog but twice a year. Things have changed! We have a lot more breeds of dogs. The influx of Doodles have really changed bathing and grooming requirements for the average household dog because there are a lot of Doodles that live in the average household. Bathing your dog is very, very important. 

Laura Reeves [2:25] So, it’s going to be bath day. I’m going to bath my dog on Saturdays. What are you going to do first? Very first thing I’m going to do? 

Allison Alexander [2:38] The first thing you want to do is take an overall look at your dog. Decide: are they really dirty? Are they matted? These are two different problems. If your dog is matted, if you bathe them haphazardly, you are actually going to tighten those mats up in the bath. If your dog is just dirty, hallelujah! We can take care of that. It’s not so awful. Take a look at your dog. Do they have burrs stuck in them? Do they have twigs stuck in them? Are their eyes runny? Do they have crusty things around their eyes? Take a look. Lift up their ear. Look into their ear. Does their ear look dirty? If it doesn’t look dirty, it’s probably fine. If it does look dirty, take a little whiff. Does it smell kind of yeasty? If it’s just dirt, you can easily take a cotton ball and any ear cleaner that you might find—they’re all kind of the same. You can even take just a little bit of baby oil on that cotton pad. I don’t really want you to use a cotton swab. 

Laura Reeves [3:40] Q-tips are bad.

Allison Alexander [3:42] Q-tips are bad. Somewhat like a baby. You don’t want to put anything smaller than your elbow in your dog’s ear. I like to use those makeup remover pads, because I find they’re a bit more appliable, and I can get them around my finger and really clean. If I just have a dirty ear, I sometimes just use baby oil and clean that ear. I like to clean the ear before the bath because if there is any oil/ear cleaning product, I can get that washed off in the tub. So, take a look at your dog’s ears. Clean them. If they are really kind of black, dirty, and smell, then I would still clean them, but if it’s ongoing, that’s a note on the fridge. The dog might need to go to the vet and get its ears checked. A yeast infection could just get worse and worse and worse. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s rainy, it’s cloudy, it’s moist. Even your dog’s water bowl gets that pink mold in it really quickly within a day, so imagine our dogs are also feeling those effects. Same thing. Clean out any debris they have around their eyes. Any big sticks or anything you can get out of them, get out of them. 

Now, if your dog has mats, take a look at where the mats are. Are they in those friction areas? By friction areas, I mean armpits, where the dog’s moving, sometimes in their stifle or in their flank where it’s moving, around their butt from their tail wagging or just simply sitting on the wet grass or sitting anywhere, and then typically around the backs of the ears. If your dog wears a collar, under where the collar sits. If your dog wears a harness, under where the harness sits. Wherever these mats might be, you want to break them up with your fingers before they go into the tub. You can pull them apart gently. You can put a bit of cornstarch in them. Cornstarch—most people have it. If you don’t, it’s super cheap. Sprinkle some in, and that really helps break that mat apart. 

Laura Reeves [5:28] Super great life hack for everybody. Cornstarch in the mats! You’re talking about breaking them up with your hands. Do you have tools that I would have at my house for a dog that has longer hair? 

Allison Alexander [5:40] Even my long-haired dogs, I tend to break them up with my hands first. You might have a tail comb, a knitting needle—sometimes that helps to break the mat up. But typically I do just use my hands, whether it’s an Afghan Hound or a longer-coated Doodle, a Doodle that hasn’t been groomed in a while, whatever it might be. I’ll do that first before I get them into the tub. Now when I wash my dogs—so I’m actually going to get it into the tub—I typically want to always wash their face in something that is tearless. Just because accidents happen. It’s easy to get shampoo or suds or whatever into your dog’s eye. There are great tearless dog shampoos out there, but simple baby shampoo works just as good. You can use something like—Chris Christensen makes a product called Happy Eyes—that or any kind of Johnson’s baby shampoo, no-name baby shampoo, whatever. I always wash the face really, really well because that’s the face that comes to kiss us. That’s the face we want to kiss. Make it smell as good as possible. 

Laura Reeves [6:47] With all the gross in the beard, yeah. 

Allison Alexander [6:50] Then when you’re bathing your dog, you always want to start from the head and work down to the tail. One thing that’s really, really important for those coated dogs (especially dogs that did have some matting) is that we’re never moving our hand in a circular motion. A lot of people put the shampoo on and they’re just moving their hand in a circular motion because that’s how we wash our own hair, that’s how we wash the car, that’s how we wash the floor. But that’s not how we wash our dog. We always want to be taking our hands and moving down the coat and kind of pushing the shampoo into the coat and spreading the coat apart. Again, especially in those matted areas—wherever there were mats, you want to get the shampoo in there and keep breaking that up with your fingers. Hit it with a bit more water. Any shampoo that you might buy to bathe your dog, I would still dilute it to about 4:1. I’m going to dilute it in a big gallon container. If you can save a gallon container from your milk or from something that was obviously nontoxic, you can mix it up in there. That just allows you to get it through the dog’s coat a lot easier. Just keep working in all those areas, but  not ever in a circular motion. 

Laura Reeves [7:58] I think one of the most important things is to make sure that you can actually see the skin. When you are working the shampoo into the coat, and you’re pulling the coat apart, I want to see actual skin, yeah? 

Allison Alexander [8:13] Yes. You’re always pulling—no matter how you’re grooming your dog (whether you’re bathing it, rinsing it, and brushing it)—we must always see the skin. As soon as we can’t see the skin, that’s matting at the skin. That’s when problems just start to multiply really, really quickly. Really good point, that we have to see the skin. We need to pick up that leg. We need to get into the armpit. We need to really scrub around that foot. Get your fingers between your dog’s pads. There’s little stones and dirt.

Laura Reeves [8:40] Mud, yes.

Allison Alexander [8:41] If you have a smooth-coated dog, you still want to clean in there. It’s only going to take you five seconds, but if you have a hairy dog, they’re going to have hair between their feet, and you really want to get the mud, those stones, the grossness right out of there. On a heavily soiled dog that isn’t bathed once a week, I’m going to give them two shampooings. I am going to say that a lot of people don’t leave the shampoo on a dog long enough to actually do its job. They want to get it in and out of there as quickly as possible. Leave the shampoo on for 1-3 minutes. Get it all sudsed up. Get it in there. You really need to do two shampoos on the head and around the ears, two shampooings on the feet, and two shampooings on the butt—all for fairly obvious reasons. Then when we’re rinsing, we really want to make sure that that shampoo is rinsed right out of there. You have a little bit of soap left on your Labrador or your short-coated dog, they might get a little flaky, they might get a little itchy. You can wipe it off with a washcloth, you’ll be fine. But soap in one of those longer coated dogs is just going to cause matting and cause skin irritation. 

Laura Reeves [9:52] You can cause actual sores when you don’t get that shampoo rinsed out well enough. 

Allison Alexander [9:56] If you’re worried about it because you haven’t bathed your dog in a long time, your dog has a lot of coat, you can always make a 10% vinegar solution. In that same gallon container or maybe you saved a couple of gallon containers, you’re going to put about a tenth of just plain household cooking white vinegar in there and fill the rest up with warm water. When you think you have all the shampoo rinsed out or you need help getting it rinsed out (maybe you didn’t dilute the shampoo because you thought your dog was really dirty and now you’re having a really hard time), just put that vinegar rinse in there. Leave it for a minute. It’s going to really cut that sud, the soap, the detergent, and really help you get it rinsed out of there.

Laura Reeves [10:35] Hey, that is hack number two. I love that one, Allison. That is fabulous. 

Allison Alexander [10:40] It’s really helpful, especially the longer coated the dog. Also, if you have a dog that does end up a little bit itchy, like your short-coated dog, try that, too. I find that for my short-coated dogs, my other hack for itchy short-coated dogs is Head & Shoulders. Even on my Poodle. I had a Poodle that scratched the top of her head for six months, and I tried medicated shampoo, she had a skin scraping at the vet, went through all this stuff. And then another veterinarian said, “Have you tried Head & Shoulders?” I’m like, “No…” I tried Head & Shoulders and never itched again. Since that time, my go-to for my itchy dogs is Head & Shoulders. 

Laura Reeves [11:18] That is crazy. 

Allison Alexander [11:21] It really works. The other question I get all the time is people ask, “Is that safe for dogs?” Well, they tested on humans. Often, they test it on dogs to be safe for humans, so therefore it’s probably safe for dogs. That’s, unfortunately, how that circle goes.

Laura Reeves [11:37] So, Allison, another life tip that I love—and you can speak to this as well—for your short-coated dogs that are maybe just flaky or got into something or what have you, Listerine. A little bit of Listerine, about 10% or 20% in a spray bottle with water. You spray that on there, and they’ve gotten into something gross, and it just wipes the stink off. 

Allison Alexander [12:04] It’s also really good for their skin. It’s antiseptic. Yeah, Listerine. It also makes them shiny, gets rid of dandruff. Listerine is something I’ve definitely used for a long, long time. 

Laura Reeves [12:13] Absolutely. Okay, so we’ve cleaned their ears, we’ve washed them, we’ve rinsed them, and we’ve rinsed them for a third time even when we thought they were rinsed enough, we rinsed them again. What are we going to do next? 

Allison Alexander [12:26] If you have a short-haired dog, maybe that’s all you’re going to do. If you have a longer-coated dog, now you need to put some conditioner in there. Conditioner is going to be your friend. I basically recommend whatever shampoo you get, you get the matching conditioner. Basically because they’re going to have the same pH value, so they’re going to work together. One of my favorite conditioners is by Chris Christensen, and it’s called After You Bathe. It’s called a conditioning final rinse, so you can use a separate conditioner and then this, but the reason I love it for at-home people (I sell this a lot to at-home people and a lot to mobile groomers and a lot to cool people) because it cuts your drying time down by 30%. If you’re at home and you don’t have all the industrial tools and you don’t want to spend two days drying Fifi, having something that cuts down your drying time by 30% is very, very helpful. Again, any conditioner you use—I’m going to dilute it about 8:1. Another thing is some conditioners are very thin because they have a lot of water in them, and some are very thick. If you’re using a very thick conditioner, I suggest you dilute it in a protein shaker cup with a wire with balls, so it more emulsifies that conditioner throughout the water. Otherwise, you’re getting a bunch of water, a clumpy conditioner. Again, hit those matted areas first. Behind the ears, where the collar or harness sits, the armpits, the stifle, the flank, around the butt. Really get the conditioner in there and really work it in with your hands. Again, leave that conditioner on for up to three minutes to allow it to do its job. Most conditioners you probably don’t have to 100% rinse them out, especially if you’re doing an at-home bathe job. You can probably leave about 10% of the conditioner in there, and it might give you some more manageability. It might help with dematting. It might help keep future mats out of the dog. That’s something to consider, too, if you’re using conditioner. You don’t have to be quite as fastidious as shampoo at getting it out. 

Laura Reeves [14:32] Right, absolutely. I’ve got my dog washed and rinsed and conditioned and wrapped up in a big fluffy towel so that it doesn’t go run amuck in the yard and get dirty again. What’s my next job? 

Allison Alexander [14:45] Before you bathed your dog, you made sure there was a clean space for your dog to shake. Because shaking seems kind of dumb, but shaking is scientifically proven to rid ourselves and dogs of a certain amount of water over and above what towel drying will do. I always have an area, maybe a laundry room, maybe a garage, if you have a really super nice, clean yard in the middle of summer. I just throw them there for 5-10 minutes and just let them shake. In the tub, I really like to dry their faces really well, and I really like to squeeze as much water out as possible. Again, on those longer-coated dogs, you’re not moving that towel in a circular motion, you’re always squeezing it down the legs, squeezing it down the body, squeezing it down the tail. As soon as you move the towel in a circular motion, then you’re done. You’re adding mats. You’re making more work for yourself.

So, I’ve squeezed the water out, I’ve put them somewhere clean—maybe the laundry room, maybe the garage—to shake the water out. Wherever I’m going to groom them—maybe I’m lucky enough at home to have a grooming table, maybe I don’t, maybe you have a picnic table outside, maybe your dog is small enough that you could put it on your washer or dryer, maybe you have some kind of place that you could dry—I suggest that you have a bath mat, like a bath mat that you would use in your bathroom, designated for grooming your dog on if you don’t have a grooming table. Because it has a non-slip surface so you can put that on top of, say, the dryer. (The dryer is a great one if you have a little dog, because it’s a good height for you to dry it. A picnic table outside or some kind of table that you can dry your dog on.) The bath mat can absorb that extra water that’s dripping down. It’s a nice stable place for your dog to be. If you have a grooming table and a grooming arm with maybe a grooming loop to help secure your dog so they’re not running away every 10 minutes, that’s helpful. We don’t want to start drying our dogs when they’re dripping with water. So often, I’ll help people and they’ll send me pictures or we’ll do a Zoom call, and they say, “It takes me three hours to dry Fifi.” I’m like, “It shouldn’t.” They started drying when the water is still literally dripping off their dog. You don’t want that. You can use your own hair dryer (that you use for yourself before you get into buying any other equipment) and a brush (probably a slicker brush), and you’re going to start drying your dog. I don’t suggest you start drying with the head, because a lot of dogs don’t like that. They don’t like the dryer near their ears, near their face. Start on part of their body, maybe a part that’s matted (where their collar sits, maybe the middle of their back) just so they get used to it. Brushing at the same time that you’re drying is very helpful. If you have a short-coated dog, we just want to make sure that the dog is somewhere comfortable and dry and warm. Dogs can get inflammation in their tails if they’re wet, if the coat is wet at the skin and they’re in a crate or in a small area or even out in your garage where it’s cold. We call it “cold in the tail” or whatever, but it’s actually actual inflammation in the muscle in the tail. So then you just start drying your dog. 

Laura Reeves [17:58] Those of us who have been in dog shows and know how to hold a hair dryer cramped against our shoulder with our chin while we hold the leg and brush so we have two hands—we’re crazy dog show people. You don’t have to do that at home. But I think the important part is getting them dry, wouldn’t you say?

Allison Alexander [18:16] It’s so important to get them dry, whether it’s a short-coated dog that (like I said) is going to get inflammation in their tail (which is painful for them!) or your longer-coated dog. If your longer-coated dog isn’t dry (if your Golden Retriever, that coat type, your Shetland Sheepdog, your Collie, your Aussie, your Bernese Mountain Dog, your Somalian), if they’re not dry, they’re going to get what’s called a hot spot, which is at the skin. It looks really nasty. It can be big and weepy. They’re going to have a huge bald spot there. It usually involves a vet bill. Often, they are caused by your dog not being dry at the skin. We talked about bathing—you have to see the skin. When you’re drying, you have to see the skin and the coat needs to be dry at the skin. The more powerful dryer you have, the better. Always have the dryer as warm as you and your dog can take it. I always say that’s why you’re always using your hand at the same time. If the dryer hits your hand and it’s too hot for you, it’s too hot for your dog. But you don’t want to do it on cold or you’re going to be there for five hours. You do need the heat to actually dry your dog. You can buy a little hold-a-hose, different things that will hold your dryer so you can get into all those nooks and crannies. Even if you have to do it in a couple of shifts, like you dry for a little while and give them a break and dry—every time you put your dog back up on that table, they should be on a dry towel, so it’s soaking up more of that moisture. You want to be drying right down to the skin. If you have a Doodle, a Poodle, and you don’t dry them, they’re going to mat. It’s just going to be one big mat. 

Laura Reeves [19:52] It’s just going to be worse. 

Allison Alexander [19:52] Drying is really, really important. When you pick brushes, one thing that I can’t emphasize enough is doing the scratch test. So many people say, “My dog hates being groomed and runs away from the brush,” or “They used to like it, but now they don’t,” or “They liked it at the groomer’s, but they don’t like it when I do it.” A lot of times, cheap brushes are made by wire, bent straight, and then that wire is put into a brush. So the end of any cut wire, as you know whether you’ve brushed up against a fence or anything in your lifetime, scratches you. You’ve basically put 60, 90, 150 scratchy things into a brush and now you’re putting it on your whole dog’s body. That’s why a lot of times people will go to a dog show or go to a grooming competition and say, “That brush is $40. I can get it at Walmart for $8.” Well, I’m fine with you having an $8 brush, as long as you have taken it, and you have run it on the bare skin of your arm as hard as you’re going to brush your dog. If it scratches your arm, it’s going to scratch your dog. I just call that The Scratch Test. A lot of times, the reason that the brushes that you’re going to find at a dog show or a professional, as we would call it, brush is more expensive is because the end of each wire is round ground. That’s so very important for the comfort and safety because enough of those scratches can cause a hot spot, a skin irritation, a staph infection even. If you have a bristle brush because you have a short-haired dog, you don’t really have to worry about it. But if you’re using a slicker brush, if you’re really trying to do at-home grooming, even if you slip off the dog and it goes on your hand and it scratches your hand, that’s what it’s doing to your dog the entire time. You need to be aware of that. 

Laura Reeves [21:35] Absolutely. Excellent. The last thing we have to do—we’ve got our dog clean and dry and his ears are cleaned—we’re going to trim his toenails. Always everybody gets hysterical. The dog’s hysterical. The mom’s hysterical. Everybody’s hysterical. Give us some help here. 

Allison Alexander [21:48] First of all, I want your toenail clippers to not be the guillotine type. I want them to be a scissor type so that there are two edges moving together. The guillotine type looks like a guillotine. One end goes up. The reason is you have more control over the scissor type and the guillotine type twists the nail and actually hurts the dog’s nail. You don’t really want to hit the quick. I suggest you buy some Kwik Stop when you’re buying your nail clippers for emergencies, if you do hit the quick. If you have a dog with white toenails, you can see the quick. 

Laura Reeves [22:24] It’s the pink part in there. 

Allison Alexander [22:25] The pink part that’s inside the nail. Hold it somewhere light. Wear your glasses. Make sure that you can see that quick, and you can get as close to the quick as you want. For dogs that are dark-nailed, if you look at the nail from the side, there is often a line (like a cuticle line) that looks like maybe peeling nailpolish. Where that line is, that is where the quick is in the nail. If you look at the underside of the nail, whether it’s on a black or a white-nailed dog, if you think of the bottom of the nail as a canoe, where that area is empty is where that quick is. Where the area is filled in is where the quick is. Where it’s empty ahead of that is where you can safely cut the nail. There’s two ways that you can do it. Do it in a lot of light. I, personally, like to do the nails in the bathtub, typically because the dog doesn’t expect it. The bathtub is a little bit slippery, so they’re not fighting you as much. I also don’t like to do all four paws at once. I like to do one paw. Shampoo the next leg. Do the other paw. Shampoo the next leg. Do the other paw. Because otherwise, they’re anticipating it, because you’ve just done it. Four nails, maybe a dewclaw. Always check for dewclaws on your dog. The dewclaw is the nail that’s a little bit higher up on the leg. Some breeds—those Beagle crosses—can have dewclaws on the back as well. Check for that nail, because that’s the one that typically grows around in a circle. One, two, three, four. By the fourth nail, the dog’s like, “Hey! What are they doing?!” But then you’ve stopped, and you’re shampooing the next leg. One, two, three, four! Oh, four! I typically also start with the back nails because I find if they can’t see it, they don’t really notice that you’re doing it as much. Also, if you can flip your dog’s front leg behind them—

Laura Reeves [24:24] Under.

Allison Alexander [24:25] Somewhat like shoeing a horse. Doing their nails that way, a lot of times that takes a lot of anxiety out of it for the dogs. They can’t see it, so they don’t really pay attention to it, which is (I think) helpful. Even if I don’t do them in the tub, doing it one paw at a time seems to break it up mentally for our dogs. It’s not as stressful, and it’s not as stressful for us. 

Laura Reeves [24:44] That’s the one I wanted to hit on. Make sure that we are calm. The dog takes its cues from us. If you are nervous when you go to trim your dog’s toenails (you don’t want to hurt them, you know it’s going to be a big fight), the dog is going to sense that and they’re going to pick up on that anxiety, and that will make them anxious. Remember that our dogs take their behavioral cues from us. 

Allison Alexander [25:11] I one hundred percent agree which is why, again, I like to do them one at a time. Even if you’re getting stressed about it, four nails and you’re done. You can shampoo another leg. If you have a dog that has had a bad experience or you just have had problems in the past with doing their nails, I would like to see you do the method that Laura and I have talked about today before you enlist five family members to help you hold the dog down. I also find that some dogs just freak out because they’re getting picked on. They are getting ganged up on! That is actually what ganged up is. When a gang of people hold something else down when they don’t want done. Sometimes the dogs anticipate the nails even more because it’s like, “Oh, for the last hour, it’s just been you and me. Now there’s three other people in the room, so you’re going to do my nails, so I’m going to freak out.” I find that is a big thing. 

The other thing I’d like to say, too, is: we see some of those French Bulldog breeds. Some of them have those really straight nails. Some of them just grow hooks, like their nails just grow in a circular fashion quite quickly. At any time, really, but especially during Covid when there’s been lockdowns and you couldn’t go to your groomer and you can’t get equipment, if you have a nail that you think is too long or a nail that’s growing into the foot or a dewclaw, you know what? Just be straight-up about it. Go to a groomer. Go to the veterinarian and just say, “I missed this, and I need to take care of it.” I’ve had a nail on one of my dogs get away from me, just because I wasn’t paying attention, and I just thought: wow, if somebody with less experience than me was trying to get these nails shorter, they might be upset about it. It’s for the safety of our dogs. If there’s something that is out of your control, you just want to be like, “Hey, I tried my best, but I couldn’t get this done. Now I’m coming to you.” Any good groomer or good veterinarian should just be like, “Yeah, we’ve all been in this boat I’m going to help you out.” 

Laura Reeves [27:07] Let’s touch really quick on that, because I think sometimes people just don’t even know. They just plain don’t have the knowledge—or they don’t think about it, or what have you—how important it is that our dogs’ toenails be kept reasonably short. They don’t have to be nubs, but when the dog is walking on its toenails, it changes everything about the dog’s posture and gait. It can make them lame. 

Allison Alexander [27:35] Definitely. Even just walking my dog on the beach, I see dogs that are slightly lame and it typically happens on rear legs first, but not always. Sometimes I’ll just look at their front toenails, and I know that they’re lame from their toenails. It can be difficult to do by yourself, especially if you’re somebody that has had a groomer that’s been doing it for years for you and then all of a sudden, you don’t have the same equipment, you don’t have the same skill, your dog is more upset about it. It’s easy for those things to get away. But it is for the comfort and safety of our dogs. Just go get a professional’s help. Any professional that doesn’t treat you in a courteous and respectful manner around it means that you need to find another professional. Any professional would understand. I’ve had lots of friends and family during Covid come to me and say, “I need help with my dog or cat.” (I’m not really good with cat toenails, but I did my best!) That’s why we’re here. We’re here to take good care of our pets. 

Laura Reeves [28:28] Absolutely. I think that is the bottom line. When we are bathing our pets, grooming our pets at home, it’s because we want them to be healthy, and we want them to be happy. And we want them to sleep in bed with us without smelling like whatever they rolled in in the park. 

Allison Alexander [28:44] Exactly. 

Laura Reeves [28:45] Alright, well thank you, Allison. I sure appreciate your time. I know our listeners do as well. 

Allison Alexander [28:50] Thanks so much for having me, Laura!