About Me:

I am a professional Pet Groomer. I have been grooming for 28 years. This Blog is a kind of diary of my work. I wish I had started years ago, writing some of the experiences I have had while grooming. Most days are fun, some can be sad, some can be just down right crazy. If you are a pet owner and come across this blog, I hope it helps you understand how your pet is groomed. If you are a Pet Groomer, I hope you can relate to some of the stories. Maybe even learn a grooming tip or can leave a friendly grooming tip for me. There is always something to learn, no matter how long you have been grooming.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Drying Tip

Thankfully we have a washer and dryer in our shop.

I say thankfully because, between the Self-Serve and the full grooming, we go through a ton of towels.

Years ago I tried the magnet towels, but they did not last long.
After a few washings and drying they shrunk up and did not seem to suck the water out of the dogs coat the way they did when I first bought them.




For the last few years, I have been using Absorber® towels.

I get them from Wal-Mart in the automotive department.

I would cut them into two towels.

I liked them.

They worked well, but they were expensive, hard to clean, and did not last as long as I thought that they should for the price.




When I was at Groom Expo in September the Davis booth had magnet towels, a dozen for $2.10 each.








I thought that I would try them out again.

I bought two dozen.



When I got them to the shop, I cut each magnet towel into 4 smaller towels.

Leaving the magnet towel in one large piece is just too large for me to wring out.

The smaller towel is much easier to handle.



Plus, you get a lot more towels for your money.
Those two dozen magnet towels were now 96 towels.






Using the magnet towel:

You do not need to wet these towels down first to use them.

This dog is ready to towel dry.


  Just rub the magnet towel all over the dog the same way that you would with a normal towel.

You will feel the magnet towel filling with water.

You can continue to rub until the towel is dripping with water, or does not seem to be sucking anymore water off of the coat.







Then you simply wring all of the water out of the magnet towel.

See how much easier it is to squeeze out the smaller towel.






Once you have squeezed out as much water as you can the magnet towel is ready to go over the dog again.






You can go over the dog with the same magnet towel as many times as you need to, to get as much water off of the coat as you can.







We use the same small size magnet towel on every size dog.

Small, medium....





....and large.

They work really great at sucking a lot of water out of the coat to help speed up drying.

But how long will they last?

Will they hold up to washing and drying?



Those questions were one reason why I waited so long to write this post.



This is one of the cut up towels that I have been using for the last five months, everyday, five days a week.

This magnet towel has been washed at the end of everyday, for 5 months.

It still looks like new and still sucks the water out of the coat.




So, what is so different from these magnet towels and the ones I tried years ago?

These magnet towels are a little thicker, but I don't think that that is why they are holding up better this time around.

I did things a little different this time with these towels that I think has kept them from shrinking and losing their absorbancy.

We use one magnet towel per dog a day.
At the end of the day we wash them, but we do not dry them.
The dryer shrinks them up.
I also think that drying them in a dryer caused them to lose their absorbancy.
We hang the magnet towels up at night and let them air dry.
They are dry and ready to go by the next morning.

I still use regular towels on my drying table, and in the kennels, but we have definitely cut back on the amount of towels that need washing.

Once you have cut the one large magnet towel into 4 smaller towels, you have spent about .53¢ per towel.

You can't beat that!

✂ Happy Grooming ✂ 

4 comments:

  1. I use the absorbers and leave them in desinfectant and wash them ones a week some of them have hairs stuck to them :/ but i like them i'll try to find the davis ones thou....i have been trying to post before and had problems :/ could find your email on the blog to let you know apparently this post will go thru ;)

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  2. Hi Jessica,
    Click on the word 'Davis' in my post. I linked it to the Davis website.

    My work e-mail is:
    furryfriendpets@yahoo.com

    If you ever have a question I will be happy to try to answer it for you. :)

    Lisa, MFF

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  3. Love your blog! It was funny that I would run across this subject today. Drying. I am still new to the grooming world and have not yet seen everything that can happen when you are grooming a dog. I must admit that I was kind of naive when it came to grooming. I have really loved to learn it and make it my own, but I never knew really how dangerous it is.

    So back to today. I was grooming a old, 20 lb Pomeranian. It was the first time it was ever groomed in a shop before. The owner said he was just getting to heavy for her to do anymore and he wouldn't stand up. So I took him on thinking okay this shouldn't be too hard. The owner only wanted bath, brush and with the typical light trim up. Well I bathed him. Nothing to worry that much about. He was nervous, but I talked him through it okay. I made sure the water wasn't on fully blasting on him and no water got down his nose. I then put him on the drying table and started to drying him. He was doing really well. I got him mostly dry then I got to his head. I turned down the drier and started working on him. He started to get upset. Nothing like the dog I had earlier that day. He was so bad I was worried he would thrash off the table. Yup time to stop that and put him in front of a fan. Well the pom wasn't anything like that, but I knew he wasn't enjoying it. So I tired to be careful. Then the next thing I knew he just dropped to he stomach. His back was to me because I had stopped drying his head. Well that's weird? I told him to stand back up with the help of my arm to stand him back up. Did I mention he was a very over weight pom? :) I held him up for a few seconds, and I pulled my arm from out under him and bam! down he goes again. Then I said again pulling him back up with my arm that he is going to choke himself. That is when I noticed his starting to turn blue tong sticking out and he was stiff!

    I had no clue what he was doing. All I knew was to stop drying and get him off the lead. I guess he was having a drying secure??? I've never seen that before. His poor little heart was racing. He snapped out of it very quickly but I felt horrible. I guess it was all too much for him. I have never quite thought about me doing something to a animal that could of killed him. I know all of this was just a few seconds long but it really scared me. I never thought about how one little thing could really effect animal so much.

    I called the owner and she agree that her dog was really nervous. She was glad that he was okay. Boy this upset me today. I've made some minor mistakes before grooming but nothing like this. Ruth

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    Replies
    1. Hi Ruth,
      So sorry it has taken me so long to reply. I can't read your whole comment until I post it, and I don't post them till I have time to reply. Does that make any sense?

      Anyway, I am so sorry that this happened to you. Yes, grooming can be very scary sometimes. Especially with elderly dogs. You sound like you did everything right. The only thing that I would have done differently was, I would have packed the dogs ears with cotton to defuse the sound of the dryer. I have found that this really helps with elderly dogs. (but not always) I would have also stopped with that dryer as soon as he started fussing for his head. The reason for this is because the owner said that this was the dogs very first professional grooming. So he was already stressed that he was someplace strange, and he had most likely never had a dryer with that kind of power on him before. So any sign of more stress would have made me stop drying.
      As for a 'dryer seizure', I don't think what you described sounds like one, at least not like ones I have experienced. :/ I think that he just collapsed from lack of any energy left on his body. I am sure, that because of his weight, he most likely has a very weak heart. Thankfully you stopped to give him time to calm down again.
      Believe me, you don't want to see a 'dryer seizure'. The first sign is to stiffen the body and start to fuss at the same time. It is hard to describe. After dealing with a few 'dryer seizures' over the years, I have come to have a sixth sense about when I think a dog may be ready to have one.
      The second and last sign,(if you miss the first one) is that they arch backwards and just start to scream at the top of their lungs. You can barely hold on to them from the flailing around.
      What do I do if this does happen? I grab the dog close to my body, in a tight hug, and walk them out of the grooming room, sometimes I walk them right outside. The bast of fresh air, or just moving to a new room seems to bring them out of it. I walk around holding them and talking to them until they are totally calm again. Then a note is made on their card to NEVER use the HV dryer on them again. THEN, I go in a corner and try to calm myself down. :/
      I have found that every dog that has rejected the HV dryer will still let me dry them with the hand dryer. (with cotton in their ears)

      I don't know how your shop works, but if she wants you to groom that dog again, I would make sure that the owner understands how stressed the dog gets and that the owner would be available to pick up the dog the minute that you are done grooming it, because I groom these types of dogs straight through so that I can get them out of my shop as fast as possible.

      I am so glad that everything turned out good and that the dog was okay. I hate grooming heart attacks....meaning mine! :) It is the ugly part of grooming. Only another groomer can understand.

      Oh, I don't think that you made a mistake in any way. It sounds like you did everything right. Unfortunately, we just never know what a dog is going to do until they do it. What counts is how we handle it....you handled it very well. :) Believe me, you will be even more in tuned with the dogs now while you are drying them.
      Hang in there, we need good groomers out there!
      Lisa, MFF

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