[kacaju]

I have a Smooth Collie.
I know that it is a *rare* breed so to speak and I understand when I take him for a walk many people think he is a rough that was shaved or a collie mix.

I was shocked to go into Petco with him and have the GROOMER there say oh look a shaved Collie!!
Is it wrong to assume that a groomer would know he was not shaved??

 

[0hmyd0g]

In grooming school I had to learn all the breeds but a lot groomers don't take a professional grooming course so they may know only the more common breeds.
I don't think it's wrong for a groomer to think that your dog was something else. There are a lot of mix breeds out there and even for a groomer it can be tough to just guess sometimes.
Maybe because it's more common to see a shaved rough collie than it is to see a regular smooth collie?

 

[Love's_Sophie]

I have groomed dogs for over 9 years, and have bathed and brushed since I was 13, so I have a combined experience in the grooming business of over 15 years; I have studied dog breeds since I started as a bather brusher, and still study breeds; I "usually" do not get a breed, or even mixes wrong when a client comes in; I think it is important to my clients that I know about their breed, especially in terms of how they might be groomed.

Your dog's coat is very much different than that of a shaved off rough coated collie's; his coat, though double coated like his 'cousin's... is short, and thick, as well as pretty 'rough' in feeling. When shaved off, the rough coated collie has a very soft feeling in comparison to your dog's normal coat feeling.

In the case of your breed, there isn't a whole lot of specifics regarding grooming; bathing brushing, carding out shedding coat thoroughly, nail trimming, ear cleaning, etc...that's about all there is...but a groomer "should" know about your dog's breed; I personally think that's part of what a qualified groomer should be about.

 

[kacaju]

I was not bringing him in to be groomed. My daughter and I do it. I just happen to have him with me when I needed to pick up food. The groomer was in the store talking to another employee when I happen to walk past them when she made that comment.

 

[ThoseWordsAtBest]

Really depends on where you go. I went through a pet store grooming training class, and they really skimp. It's 20 days, usually with one teacher and too many girls, and the dogs you get to work on really depend on if the breed comes in or not. Half the time I had to split a grooming on one dog with another girl. At no point did I even touch a poodle, which is pretty important in the grooming world. When we "studied" breeds, the teacher just handed out dog breed books during down time and asked us to look at them. After you get out of the academy, you had an 8 week period where you need to work on 100 some dogs under the manager, and even then what you know is limited to what you want to know. If you don't want to know how to groom dogs you don't normally see, you don't read about them.