Groomer Has It - Episode Two
Published: 04/22/2008 - Joey Villani
Sheep! I’ve been grooming dogs since I was a child, but I’ve never sheared a sheep. I wish they’d allowed the judges to be there to see this. Actually, I thought everyone did really well with this–Amber and Jorge, and John and Melissa in particular really got into it, and showed their versatility. The judges weren’t there because there was fear that the contestants would feel inhibited in front of us–the show wanted the contestants to let loose with the sheep, without our eyes on them.
Then came the Bearded Collies. Though these dogs were a mess, most of them were show dogs, and the owners of the dogs didn’t want a lot of unnecessary stuff done to them. As well, the contestants only had a limited number of tools to work with–for example, when working on dogs like this, a #10 blade on a clipper would have been used, but the dog’s owners and handlers didn’t want this. So the contestants were up against it, working on matts and staining, with the tools they were allowed.
Also, the contestants only had two hours to get these dogs into shape, and most of them felt this simply wasn’t enough time. I disagree–to me, the two hours should have been plenty of time, and the contestants have to deal with time constraints such as this one and still excel. This is, after all, a contest–it’s not supposed to be easy!
The biggest drama occurred when Will, trying to work matts out of his dog in her sanitary area, seemed to be hurting the dog–she was crying and wriggling, clearly in discomfort. Judge Xavier was upset about this, and called Will on it. To me, Will was doing the best he could with his lack of appropriate tools, but I think he went wrong in not speaking up about this problem. He should have told the judges that he simply couldn’t get this done without hurting the dog, and he wasn’t about to hurt the dog. You’ve got to be concerned about the dog’s well being first and foremost.
Sarah had another issue–her dog’s face was seriously stained, and when she showed her dog to the judges, the staining was still evident. Now, if an owner or handler was grooming his or her own dog, a little bleach or blueing could be used, judiciously, to get the staining out, but our contestants didn’t have this option. Nevertheless, Sarah’s dog’s face was so stained that, even with what Sarah had at her disposal to use for stains, it didn’t seem that she’d done her job.
So the judges had this problem–who to eliminate? Will, who caused his dog discomfort, or Sarah, who didn’t adequately deal with a stained face. Ultimately, we decided that Will has skill, and he did his best to fulfill the contest’s assignment, without hurting the dog, while Sarah showed a lack of skill in leaving the stained face, so we chose to eliminate Sarah. Time will tell if our decision was the right one.
Groomer Has It - Episode One
Published: 04/17/2008 - Joey Villani
I watched the first episode of “Groomer Has It” at Intergroom, with 300 groomers, which was pretty pressure packed. The response was good, overall–about 80% loved it, while 20% didn’t, feeling the show didn’t portray the best image for groomers. I don’t agree, but you can’t please everybody all of the time.
The first episode featured a “Quick Snip Challenge,” in which the contestants were blindfolded, and allowed to feel nine different dogs, with the purpose being to guess the breeds of the dogs. The contestant who guessed the most correctly got an advantage in the actual grooming competition to come. Amazingly, Amber, one of the contestants, got all nine correct, including a Dalmatian! Another contestant got six breeds correct.
The actual grooming competition surprised and stunned the contestants–their first challenge was to groom a yarn dog instead of a real, live dog. Most of the contestants had never even seen the yarn dogs before, and the yarn dogs are actually much harder to groom than real dogs. Just to brush out a yarn dog correctly usually takes from one to three hours, and the contestants only had three hours to complete the entire groom. All of them, though, did a fairly decent job. And all the contestants showed off their different personalities, which is what the show is really about–who do you like, who do you dislike, who would you want to groom your own dog? Reality shows are all about personality, no matter what challenges the contestants are facing.
The judges agreed on the contestant who was eliminated, as it was felt that she was simply the least competent. But it wasn’t easy. The other contestant in the bottom two, Jasper, had broken one of the legs on his yarn dog at the very beginning of the grooming, which worried us judges–we had concerns about his handling skills, of course. But these yarn dogs are sometimes defective, and we decided to give Jasper the benefit of the doubt, as he demonstrated more expertise and showed promise. Amber, the contestant who won the “Quick Snip Challenge,” had won a second yarn dog to work on, so if anything went wrong on her initial attempt, she got this second chance.
Now the contestants are confused–they wonder if they’ll be working only on yarn dogs, or will get real dogs to work with, and they realize that anything can happen. All I can say is, “stay tuned for more surprises.”
Groomer Has It Season One - Video Blog
Published: 04/01/2008 - Joey Villani
It’s hard to talk about the preparation for the first episode, because we judges were kept completely separate from everything that was going on. I didn’t like this at first–I felt as if we had no control over what was about to happen, which made no sense since we were so important to the process. We had no contact at all with the contestants or with any of the planning. But later, it made perfect sense–we could come to the competition with no preconceptions, and with totally fresh eyes and fresh minds for what we were about to see. There were some serious grooming heavyweights in the competition, and some people who had to be considered novices, but as judges brought into the process at the last minute, all we could judge was who was on his game on that day, which was the way it was supposed to be. On any given day, any groomer might shine, and that was the person who deserved to win on that day, even if it meant that some heavyweight got eliminated if he or she wasn’t on his or her game that day. We judges were completely in the dark, and that made all of this work–we were fresh and open to what we were about to see. It made it all much more exciting–it really was unfolding in front of the viewers’ eyes, just like it was unfolding in front of ours.
To me, this was like the Superbowl this year, with the heavily favored Patriots and the underdog Giants. The Patriots should have won. But on any given day in sports, anything can happen, and it did. The Giants were on their game, and beat what was probably the much better team. Groomer Has It ended up being like this–like any great sport. It was a fair, authentic competition.,
I watched the first episode of “Groomer Has It” at Intergroom, with 300 groomers, which was pretty pressure packed. The response was good, overall–about 80% loved it, while 20% didn’t, feeling the show didn’t portray the best image for groomers. I don’t agree, but you can’t please everybody all of the time.
The first episode featured a “Quick Snip Challenge,” in which the contestants were blindfolded, and allowed to feel nine different dogs, with the purpose being to guess the breeds of the dogs. The contestant who guessed the most correctly got an advantage in the actual grooming competition to come. Amazingly, Amber, one of the contestants, got all nine correct, including a Dalmatian! Another contestant got six breeds correct.
The actual grooming competition surprised and stunned the contestants–their first challenge was to groom a yarn dog instead of a real, live dog. Most of the contestants had never even seen the yarn dogs before, and the yarn dogs are actually much harder to groom than real dogs. Just to brush out a yarn dog correctly usually takes from one to three hours, and the contestants only had three hours to complete the entire groom. All of them, though, did a fairly decent job. And all the contestants showed off their different personalities, which is what the show is really about–who do you like, who do you dislike, who would you want to groom your own dog? Reality shows are all about personality, no matter what challenges the contestants are facing.
The judges agreed on the contestant who was eliminated, as it was felt that she was simply the least competent. But it wasn’t easy. The other contestant in the bottom two, Jasper, had broken one of the legs on his yarn dog at the very beginning of the grooming, which worried us judges–we had concerns about his handling skills, of course. But these yarn dogs are sometimes defective, and we decided to give Jasper the benefit of the doubt, as he demonstrated more expertise and showed promise. Amber, the contestant who won the “Quick Snip Challenge,” had won a second yarn dog to work on, so if anything went wrong on her initial attempt, she got this second chance.
Now the contestants are confused–they wonder if they’ll be working only on yarn dogs, or will get real dogs to work with, and they realize that anything can happen. All I can say is, “stay tuned for more surprises.”
Watch the season trailer