When Gossip Replaces Standards: A Reflection on Grooming Culture
We were contacted recently by a past student who had just started her first job after finishing grooming school. Within a short time, she made the difficult decision to leave, not because she couldn’t handle the work, but because the salon’s treatment of dogs didn’t align with her values.
Not long after, she found herself excluded from a local grooming network. Not for anything she’d done wrong, but seemingly because she’d walked away from a salon that others in the group were close to.
She wasn’t angry, just stunned. As she put it, incredulous that standing up for animal welfare could lead to social exclusion. That making a principled decision could count against her in the grooming community.
Sadly, this isn’t unusual.
The dog grooming industry in Australia is unregulated. That doesn’t mean there are no qualifications. It means you don’t need one to work as a groomer. You can be self-taught, school-trained, mentored, trained on the job, complete online courses, or walk in off the street with no formal training at all. And yet, all of these pathways are treated the same in the eyes of the law and often in the eyes of the public.
This creates a strange and sometimes toxic environment. Without a mandatory baseline, people find other ways to legitimise themselves. Some cling to who trained them, how long they’ve been grooming, or their standing in the community. Others tear down those who do things differently to protect their own position.
When there’s no shared standard, people start measuring their worth against each other. And that’s when the nastiness creeps in.
We’re in a transition period as an industry. The mix of untrained, self-taught, school-trained, on-the-job trained, mentored, and online-educated professionals all working under the same title is messy, but it’s also temporary. It has to be. The longer we delay setting real, enforceable standards, the more confusion, competition and division we’ll continue to see.
And yes, there is a nationally recognised qualification. But grooming is still often bundled into broader animal care, rather than treated as its own specialised trade. What we need is a qualification designed for groomers, by grooming educators and industry experts. Something relevant, practical and respected. And one day, it needs to be mandatory.
So what can we do about it?
If we want the culture of grooming to improve, it’s not just about waiting for regulation. We all play a part in shaping the industry we work in every day.
Support and nurture new groomers, regardless of how they came up. Whether they’re self-taught, salon-trained or just starting out, encouragement goes further than critique.
Focus on your own education. There are more resources available now than ever before: online courses, tutorials, events and communities where learning is the goal, not ego.
Be the kind of groomer you wish you'd met earlier in your career. Open, professional, kind.
We’re not all going to agree on every method or style, but we can agree to raise the bar together. And that starts with how we treat each other.
Until that happens, we’ll keep doing what we’ve always done. Creating solid education, supporting open learning, and backing groomers who are serious about their craft and the future of this industry.
Where to start (or Re-Start)
The Industry Certification Pathway is a modern, structured approach to dog grooming education, designed by grooming educators and trusted by schools across Australia. It’s built to create confident, kind groomers through a clear five-Block pathway, progressing from foundation skills to advanced techniques, client care, and real-world challenges. Whether you’re just starting out or ready to gain formal recognition for your experience, this is the qualification our industry has been missing.
Build a strong foundation
New to the grooming industry? This is where you begin. Train with an igroomschool practical partner while completing Blocks 1, 2 and 3, the essential foundation of your grooming education and the first step toward recognised Industry Certification.
Already experienced? Start from Block 4 | Professional Dog Groomer
If you’ve got hands-on skills, you might not need to start from scratch. Take our free entrance assessment to see if you can begin your Certification journey from Block 4.
Training for your whole team
Running a salon or mobile business? Our B2B platform makes it easy to train staff properly, using the theoretical component of the Industry Certification pathway.
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