Dog grooming is a dream career for those of us who love dogs and want to help them live healthy, happy lives. We groomers get to spend all day with dogs (and cats, too, though not nearly as frequently), transforming our furry clients into clean, neatly trimmed models of pet perfection, or at least that’s the goal!
I love being a professional groomer, but you don’t know how close I came to giving up before I even got started. If I hadn’t given online dog grooming schools a chance, I don’t know what I’d have wound up doing for a living.
With no grooming school near me, I couldn’t have gotten my groomer certification any other way. And giving up my full time job to take in person classes was not an option.
Still, I fought the idea of taking a grooming course online.
How I Got Over Myself and Learned Dog Grooming Online
It can be hard to find a school near you that offers dog grooming classes. I live in the middle of nowhere—we jokingly called it Mordor when I was growing up. There isn’t a brick and mortar dog grooming school for 200 miles in any direction.
When I decided to become a groomer, my educational choices were limited to hanging out with the lady down the street who grooms dogs in her garage or taking classes online.
Well, I wasn’t about to throw good money away trying to learn a skill like dog grooming online. That made zero sense to me. You can’t learn grooming without getting your hands sudsy, I figured. You gotta get in there with your scissors and get some real experience.
And that’s the absolute truth. You have to have some opportunity for hands-on learning if you’re going to learn how to be a dog groomer.
I was working full time as a receptionist, but I talked to the neighbor lady and spent a couple of Saturdays in her garage trying to pick up some grooming skills.
Turns out, she wasn’t all that great of a groomer; she hadn’t even been to grooming school. She said you don’t actually have to go to school or even be certified or licensed to be a groomer. Who knew?
Online Dog Grooming School Combines the Best of Both Worlds
In desperation, I went back to Google to search for online schools and up popped Animal Behavior College. I thought the curriculum looked solid, and I found out they actually do offer hands on experience. ABC pairs students up with local mentors after the online part of the program is finished. They call it an “externship.”
I read up on ABC’s reputation and looked up their tuition and financing options and found out it was way more affordable than brick and mortar schools, so I took the plunge and called an admissions counselor.
I started the first stage of the curriculum the next day on my lunch break! How crazy is that?
Not gonna lie–I wasn’t sure I would like online learning. I wanted the kind of interaction you get with a teacher in a classroom; and I wanted to be able to ask questions. But it was never a problem. The material and videos are interesting. ABC has an awesome team of program managers with their own personal experience to help when you get stuck! I got quick responses and never felt like I was going through the course alone.
The flexibility of learning online is AWESOME! I kept my full-time job while I worked my way through the dog grooming program. I’m a morning person, so it suited me to get up and get on the computer for an hour or two before work. Shhhh! I also snuck in some study time when things got dull at work.
I never felt tied down to ABC. I was free to do the work when it suited me or to play hooky when it didn’t. I kept moving forward at my own pace, but honestly, I wanted to dive into the work and finish so I could move on to my externship and get my hands on some dogs!
The only drawback to the externship was driving to the next town over. (You’ve already read about the only groomer in “Mordor,” so she wasn’t an option). It was just 25 minutes away, so not that big a deal, though. And I loved the salon! Everyone there was so patient with my mistakes.
It took about a year to get certified, and guess what? As soon as I finished the grooming program, I got hired by the salon where I did my externship! I’m so glad I found ABC! They helped me launch my dream career, and now I get to spend my days working with dogs (and some cats) instead of sitting at a desk!
If you’ve been toying with the idea of becoming a dog groomer, here’s their number: 800-795-3294.
