When I was 4 years old, a family relative gave me a mature toy poodle (Tina), she was my best friend through much of my early life, I was painfully shy so I found it difficult to make and keep friends, because I struggled to join in for fear of making a fool of myself, but Tina was my constant companion. Tina was the reason that around 8 years old I decided I wanted to be a dog groomer and that dream carried through to my teens, when I was told it wasn’t a proper job! Unfortunately, Tina passed away when I was 13 years old. I have continued to struggle with friendships for most of my life, but dogs have been my passion, although I didn’t have a dog of my own until I was 36 years old, when collie cross Kelly came along.
Instead of becoming a dog groomer I went into administration, and actually found I loved it and was good at it. Throughout my career promotion came to me easily, I never applied for promotion, but I was always just at the right place at the right time. When I left De Montfort University almost 10 years ago, I managed a team of 7 people as a Research & Development Admin & Finance Support Manager and up until early 2014 loved it. In 2014, things started to get more difficult, staffing issues, more work, more interference in my role from higher management preventing me from managing my work and team the way that I had found to be successful.
Then September 2014 I was on holiday with my husband, Paul, and three dogs, Taz, Kira and Raffi. In the shower on the second morning I found a lump in my left breast. That awful feeling of sickness hit my stomach, but I kept quiet about it for 3 weeks then was forced to go to the doctors. Referred to Glenfield Breast Centre I was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer and had surgery in November 2014 followed by 15 rounds of radiotherapy in January 2015. I was lucky, I had found the lump early and never really thought of me having cancer, it was my breast.
I returned to work on therapeutic hours in March 2015, and struggled more than I could have imagined. Tired from the radiotherapy, my team were at breaking point because of the additional work they had been given in my absence, the unwillingness to replace staff, I felt broken, this was so much more traumatic than the cancer, so much so in September 2015 I was back on sick leave with stress. I dreaded returning to work, but had started to think about a future working with dogs, I had already done a 6 day Tellington TTouch Clinic, and completed a puppy training course with the IABTC. It was during this sick leave, following a return to work meeting where I had a complete meltdown, that I decided to hand in my notice, despite not having a job to go to. I left the University at the end of January 2016 and have never regretted it for a moment.
February 2016 I started my dog grooming course, and loved it. I did 60 days training in a working salon, worked on 135+ dogs and 38 breeds. I was still studying for my TTouch practitioner status, learning as much as I could about dogs, hubby and dad were busy building a log cabin in the garden for me to use as a salon, and it all came together in July 2017, when I opened my 1-2-1 grooming salon – my childhood dream had become a reality!
Since then I have continued to study canine behaviour, achieving a range of related qualifications, learned from each and every dog I groom, and in 2019 published my first book Taking the Grrr out of Grooming Your Dog, combining my grooming and dog behaviour knowledge, then the salon version and the puppy version. They have sold better than I could have imagined, and I hope that they have helped many dogs.
I love what I do, I love watching each and every dogs confidence grow as they are allowed to become reaccustomed to grooming at their own pace, are given choices using consent based methods, and most of all knowing their small quiet body language is being listened to. I love learning more and more through the dogs, other pet professionals, conferences, seminars and webinars, and I love sharing that knowledge.
I no longer work to live, I live to work. Although my retirement age is only 3 years away, I plan to continue to do this amazing work for many more years, educating more groomers along the way so that they continue to spread the love.
