Aspiring groomers ready for dog days

While some students spent last week enjoying the dog days of summer, dogs put Jeff Protzman… While some students spent last week enjoying the dog days of summer, dogs put Jeff Protzman to work.

He’s a student at the Pampered Pet School of Dog Grooming in Brentwood, and he spends his days learning to prep and primp puppies.

Originally Protzman pursued a career in screenwriting, but after seeing an ad in a newspaper for Pampered Pets, changed his career goal.

“I like working with the mutts more than the people,” he said of the benefits of a grooming career. “It just feels like you’re helping the dogs, although its hard that they don’t understand.”

Owner Tony Venturella has been ushering students through the Brentwood school for 22 years, each year teaching five or six students the trade of professional pet grooming.

The school trains students in handling and training animals, bathing techniques, brushing and grooming, cleaning nails and ears of pets and knowing the breeds and anatomies of the animals.

The students practice their knowledge on the pets by working as part of Venturella’s business, Pampered Pet grooming.

According to Venturella, the art of grooming is harder than most think.

The most important step is the first, when groomers must thoroughly bathe the animals’ fur.

“If you can’t bathe a dog well, it’ll never look good after you groom it,” Venturella said.

After bathing, the groomers let the dogs dry in special cages then hand-dry the fur.

Once dry, the groomers then must appropriately cut the pets’ fur.

While there are only four basic cuts for the different body shapes of dogs, there are hundreds of breeds for students to learn.

And not all dogs are fluffy and light.

“This is a very hard job, it’s very physical,” she said. “If you have a 200-pound dog, how do you get it in you tub? How do you work with it?”

Being physically fit is key to the profession. Students and groomers often have to manage large and rowdy dogs and move them from tub to table.

Big dogs aren’t the only patrons of the pet grooming school, though.

Venturella said her students work on cats and rabbits regularly, and they’ve even taken on guinea pigs, reptiles, goats and a pot-bellied pig.

One former student, Barbie Hunt, took her pet-grooming career to a higher level when she went on to be an elephant trainer at the Pittsburgh Zoo.

The grooming school is currently one of only three of its kind in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia and Indiana, Pa., also have schools.

However, most professional groomers don’t attend a formalized school, Venturella said.

“Picture working in a profession where you did it over the Internet,” she said. “That’s how some learn, and that’s why we started this,” she added.

The students at the school spend between 400 and 520 hours practicing on pets before they earn their certifications.

Once they become professionals, groomers can make between $35,000 and $60,000 yearly, and groom-shop owners often bring in six-figure salaries, Venturella said.