[ashes]

matting is when the hair on a dog forms really tight tangles. usually its refering to a tangle thats too tight to brush out and usually has to be cut out

[allick06]

So far the worst I've seen is a pom that was so infested with fleas immediately took it to our vet where it later died the same day

[siberian mom]

ive only been at it for about a year and a have and this farm dog came in, it was about the size of a smaller border collie. it was so matted and the mats held so much dirt that where ever he walked ther would be a trail of dirk that followed. the poor things eyes were so encrusted that they would not open and his tail was stuck to the front part of his back leg. his nails were so long we took about an inch off each one of them. we saved the mats and wieghed it all when we finished him and there were 6.9 lbs of mats on him. and to think of all that on a medium sized dog.

[tinasavirgo]

Those worms you saw are warbles, the will and can killl a dog I have seen them many times when I worked at an animal hospital,..mostly in cats, usually there is a preexisting wound which flys lay eggs in,...and they become warbles or maggots,..but they poison the animal. Thank the Lord you reprted it to the owner!!!!

[Jen D]

I am glade I ate my dinner before reading this! It is to bad there is so much neglect when it comes to keeping dogs clean.

[DivaDog]

I remember a long time ago grooming a bichon who was fairly old and very matted - I clipped off what I could and put him in the bath, as I was bathing I could feel something on his face so washed it really well and had a closer look while I was drying - was just this huge gaping sore, was disgusting weeping and the scab stuck to his skin - I kinda dont think about it to be honest it was so disgusting I try not to - I hate to think people can leave their pets in such a state.

[Coriona_Vanleigh]

The worst I've ever seen was about only 2 weeks after I got my full N.G.A.A certifications, it was already a crazy day in the grooming salon, when my 4 o'clock arrived. Based on where I live there's really not a huge variety of pets outside small dogs ,shepards,labs,hunting dogs etc. Every once in a great while we'll have sheepdogs, but this lady takes excellent care of them. So my appointment was a bouvier des flandres, the 1st I had ever seen in my life.....what a horrible condition it was in. The owner insisted I was just trying to be lazy when I told her the coat had to be shaved. Not only are they like the size of a young bear but this poor animal was nothing but a giant mat and I told her she was lucky that the mats weren't close enough to the skin a vet had to remove the hair.So after convincing her I got to work, I felt so bad for this animal I wasn't about to charge this woman for any extra services. The coat was horribly matted and just oily filth, the smell made me want to gag it had so much fecal matter entangled in its mats, once I finally had it shaved the poor thing was so infested with fleas and ticks, I gave it a complimentary flea dip and frontline treatment.Then there had been ticks, so big around its anal cavity that they where actually embedded 1/2 way inside and was bleeding. After removing those and applying antibiotic cream and lathering her up pretty good with skin and coat lotion to lesson the irritation because of the excessive mats and fleas,tick bites. Its teeth where in fairly good condition but the ear had mites and I used an entire box of ear wipes to get them clean and gave the owner a free bottle of ear wash. To save her alot of money at the vet, and because geeze that poor sweetheart, and can you believe she had the nerve to complain about the price when i only charged her for a regular large groom,otherwise that would have been a good couple hundred! But hey the dog needed help bad and immediately and I doubt she would have taken her to the vet. The dog was so sweet though, an absolute angel for the amount of time i spent grooming her, not to mention by the look she was in she was probably never groomed at all. She just stood there putting her noise on the window, didn't bark,didn't fuss,not even with the the other dogs,nail cutting,or teeth brushing, truly one of my best customers

Originally Posted by briteday

My biggest issue are the dogs who come in with nails so long that they are walking on their heels or the toe is sideways. People think you can clip them right down to the proper length in one visit. At that point I refer them to a vet for doing the nails under sedation and with pain meds.

Although I'm not a professional groomer I voluteer at a shelter doing grooming. I also foster some of the dogs from the shelter. And all my neighbors eem to think that my dremel like tool for doing my own dogs is the best thing sinced sliced bread. They actually offer to pay me if I will do their dogs.

We get alot of dogs at the salon like that, and we do manage to cut them to proper length in 1 visit, we just apply a cooling agent and wait a few minutes in between sessions, kinda like a dentist a guess, lol and yes the dremel tool is amazing! I have never met a dog that doesn't prefer it over regular nail cuts, some thats the only way its going to get done.

[Jen D]

Originally Posted by Coriona_Vanleigh

The worst I've ever seen was about only 2 weeks after I got my full N.G.A.A certifications, it was already a crazy day in the grooming salon, when my 4 o'clock arrived. Based on where I live there's really not a huge variety of pets outside small dogs ,shepards,labs,hunting dogs etc. Every once in a great while we'll have sheepdogs, but this lady takes excellent care of them. So my appointment was a bouvier des flandres, the 1st I had ever seen in my life.....what a horrible condition it was in. The owner insisted I was just trying to be lazy when I told her the coat had to be shaved. Not only are they like the size of a young bear but this poor animal was nothing but a giant mat and I told her she was lucky that the mats weren't close enough to the skin a vet had to remove the hair.So after convincing her I got to work, I felt so bad for this animal I wasn't about to charge this woman for any extra services. The coat was horribly matted and just oily filth, the smell made me want to gag it had so much fecal matter entangled in its mats, once I finally had it shaved the poor thing was so infested with fleas and ticks, I gave it a complimentary flea dip and frontline treatment.Then there had been ticks, so big around its anal cavity that they where actually embedded 1/2 way inside and was bleeding. After removing those and applying antibiotic cream and lathering her up pretty good with skin and coat lotion to lesson the irritation because of the excessive mats and fleas,tick bites. Its teeth where in fairly good condition but the ear had mites and I used an entire box of ear wipes to get them clean and gave the owner a free bottle of ear wash. To save her alot of money at the vet, and because geeze that poor sweetheart, and can you believe she had the nerve to complain about the price when i only charged her for a regular large groom,otherwise that would have been a good couple hundred! But hey the dog needed help bad and immediately and I doubt she would have taken her to the vet. The dog was so sweet though, an absolute angel for the amount of time i spent grooming her, not to mention by the look she was in she was probably never groomed at all. She just stood there putting her noise on the window, didn't bark,didn't fuss,not even with the the other dogs,nail cutting,or teeth brushing, truly one of my best customers



We get alot of dogs at the salon like that, and we do manage to cut them to proper length in 1 visit, we just apply a cooling agent and wait a few minutes in between sessions, kinda like a dentist a guess, lol and yes the dremel tool is amazing! I have never met a dog that doesn't prefer it over regular nail cuts, some thats the only way its going to get done.

Lucky for that dog it went to you, was the owner happy with all your hard work?

[tinasavirgo]

the worst rhing i have seen i see almost daily some of our most regular customers,..and tippers i might add, allow their dogs teeth to be sooooo gross,..and wonder why they are grumpy and listless imagine 3 or 4 abcess teeth in your own mouth for a day let alone months at a time. some of the worst things i have seen are from just plain ignorance,...not lack of love for the pet.

[ryan820]

Originally Posted by pocky

oh my god !!! Maggots, worms,holes..Disgusting !!! Poor poor doggie. Obviously the owner is not very responsible with regards to his/her pet.

I'm sorry-- but nothing is ever "obvious." You have no idea about this dog-owner background. is I found larvae in my pups skin today and was repulsed! However, my dog gets the best care and everything she needs and it still happened to her. I'd hardly call my ownership "not very responsible."

[wolfsoul]

I see some pretty horrible things all the time. We also groomed a dog covered in maggots. It was a little shih tzu the SPCA seized from a backyard. It had been tied to a chain outside and was severely matted and covered in dried urine and feces. The smell was horrible. My co-worker started swiping down his back and when he got to his back end, maggots started falling onto her table and crawling toward her. We actually had to stand around the table and wipe away the maggots that fell because there were so many of them. The shih tzu had a gaping sore on his bum and another that looked like a ruptured anal glad and they were all over them.
Maggots are actually a good thing -- they eat the dead skin and bacteria and actually clean wounds. Hospitals use them on burn patients quite often to eat away at the dead skin so that infection does not sink in. Maggots do not eat healthy skin. However we couldn't exactly send a dog back with maggots crawling all over it, so we bathed him in an antiseptic shampoo and put some ointment on his sores.

One time we had a dog whose skin was so infested with speargrass we had to shave him off and spend a great deal of time digging awy at his skin with hemostats to remove the speargrass.

The usual neglect I see is severely rotting teeth and gums, severe matting, hot spots left untreated, overgrown toenails, speagrass infections, etc.

[ryan820]

Originally Posted by wolfsoul

....hemostats to remove the speargrass.

The usual neglect I see is severely rotting teeth and gums, severe matting, hot spots left untreated, overgrown toenails, speagrass infections, etc.

What is speargrass?

[Love's_Sophie]

Hmmm...yumm...the old maggot thing...accckkk...I've had a few of those over the years...

Let me see here over the years I have seen flea infestations that were so bad that the dog, or cat had a 'second' coat, that was actually fleas; Actually did one of those today. It was a kitty, that was just rescued by a very loving family, and they brought her in and asked if I could help them get rid of the fleas before they traveled home! These people were from out of town, and were up visiting some people when the kitty showed up...

Skin infections of varying degree...some of course are just unsolveable issues; I do a few cockers, and couple of smaller mixes that have allergy issues, and their skin is always bad; their owners have tried every thing, and things just haven't helped...they DO keep them clipped down though so that the extra coat doesn't cause further irritation, infection, or hot spots, due to the 'wetness' from the skin problems already there. However, some...well, some are just nasty gross, and you know the owners just don't do anything about it. I did a little dog this week that had some pretty bad chew marks where he is chewing on himself...result of fleas, and possibly something else in his environment; in his file, the dog has a history of coming in with fleas and skin problems...so it's doubtful the owner does anything about it. I did another dog this week that had HORRIBLE urine scald on her hind legs...and even after her baths still smelt bad back there...poor thing. She too has a history of coming in with 'skin problems'.

Horrible teeth...I think that HAS to be number one on my list of top ten; so many people just don't care about dental hygiene in their dogs...especially little dog owners.

I have alot of matted dogs...another top ten; these, of course are to varying degree too; some smell AWFUL!!! Those ones I hate even touching my clipper blades to them before bathing (but it's a must, cause you can't possibly get it entirely clean when it's matted to the skin). I did a Shih Tzu this summer that took me AN HOUR to prep for the bath...that dog was in BAD shape! The owners got charged for it too, though...Lol; I don't put up with people's 'stupidity' when it comes to matting, fleas, etc...I charge extra...Unless it's a 'special case'...like I did a kitty today, that was just rescued; I didn't charge the new owners extra, cause it wasn't their fault this kitty was a 'flea bag'...but special cases are usually few and far between.

I was grooming a dog once that was snarly nasty and stressed that he actually partially popped one of his eyeballs out...not joking here; NOW that was weird! He was trying to grab at me while I was trimming one last foot and all of a sudden 'there it was'...we greased it up with eye lube, and calmed him down (although he was still a crank!), as he was done; his eye ball went back in, and the vet checked it out...no damage... that one will always remain in my 'odd' things that have happened at work!

I have had plenty of dogs come in with varying amounts of maggots; including one dog that was almost literally plastered in them under his coat...yuck!

But the absolute worst thing; a dog dying on the table. No warning, no fussing, nothing...I was drying the little guy and he just flopped over dead in the noose; the vet figured he had a blood clot, or heart attack. Now that is something you don't want to happen more than once on the job...I didn't want it to happen ever...and was not prepared when it did; especially because it was a young dog...

[Jak]

Holy moly! Those are some crazy stories. Eye ball popping? Worms? Gyah. I could barely handle it when my dog got ticks. If this ever happened to my guy I'd freak out. I have so much more respect for groomers now x_x;. Brave brave souls..

[dusty&lulusmom]

After reading this there is no doubt that my groomer will get a tip each and every time I bring my dogs in.

[Ella'sMom]

Ughhhh. I am speechless at some of these stories!

[barksalot]

Originally Posted by ashes

ok a few days ago a dog came into the grooming shop completly matted. he was about 13 years old, over weight, some kind of standard poodle mix, lived outside, and hadnt been to the groomer in 7 years the woman told me. i told her right up front that due to the dogs age and coat condition i would have to just shave it all off. she was fine with that and just said whatever you have to do. i brought him back, put him on the table and began shaving. i hadnt gotten 3 strokes in when i noticed a sore of some kind on the dogs back. i went around it for the time being since old dogs get stuff like that. but then i found another and another. upon closer examination i was appauled to find that the sores were actually HOLES IN THE DOGS SKIN and what had created these holes? MAGGOTS.. the holes actually had woms crawing in them. -shudders- so we called the owner.. he went right to the vet and was treated. the owner called us the next day in tears thanking us for helping her dog. it turned out in total he had five holes in his body and would have surely died if we hadnt found them.

but what i want to know is.. has anyone else ever seen anything like that before???

I've been fortunate enough to not have it happen in my shop - although once when I was shaving down a pelted Labradoodle I thought for sure maggots would fall out. But when I use to work at the Vets office we had a German Shepard come in whose entire hind end was matted and full of maggots. I can't imagine why anyone would let their dog get that bad, but people are nuts sometimes.

My worst was when I first opened my shop. A guy called and said he had a poodle who had a few burrs on him. I told him to bring the dog over since I wasn't to busy, and when he walked in the door my jaw dropped to the floor. The dog didn't even resemble a dog and his entire body was one giant clump of matted up burrs, including all over his eyes and mouth. That didn't happen overnight. That was a good years worth of matting and rolling in burrs and I have no idea how that dog managed to eat anything, much less walk. I had to shave that entire dog, from nose to tail, with a #10 blade. That was over a year ago and he's never came back. I would lay money down the dog hasn't been groomed since then.

[LadyoftheOrb]

Originally Posted by peace36

How likely is this to happen. Does it only happen when dogs are unclean? They sound just disgusting!

All of the cats we have in my house are adopted strays, and every single one had at least one of these incidents. Our vet called them "warbles", but apparently they are EXTREMELY common in outdoor animals. I mean, I'm NOT a vet, it's just what my vet has told me countless times. I'd hope it's correct, since we've been using him since I was a little girl.

The cats haven't gotten them since they've been with us, however, and none of our dogs have, either. So, I'd have to conclude it's from neglecting to spend time with your pet and notice things properly.

[Lorina]

Warbles are a common name for the cuterebra larva, which eventually turn into botflies. It starts out as a tiny, tiny, tiny larva that live on grass and burrow under the skin, then grow to be about the size of a large grub before they exit the skin.

Creepy and gross, but not a sign of neglect. Any pet that goes outside could get one. People can get them, too. My vet's dentist had one on his head.

[dane&cockermom]

well, as just a bather i don't see as much as the actual groomer does, but i did have a golden not too long ago who needed a flea bath. i didn't think much off it so i got the flea shampoo ready, put the dog in the tub, get him wet, and discover just how badly he needed that flea bath. it looks like someone poured a 5 gallon bucket of fleas on this poor dog. i wanted to slap the owner.

that's the worst, when you just wanna hit the owner for what they let happen to their dogs kwim?