Groomer Has It: CDW Interview With Jessica!

Jessica is the youngest of all the groomers on Groomer Has It this season, but she’s got four years of grooming experience and is not afraid to learn and implent new techniques when it comes to making her client’s dogs look their best! She works in Paxton, Mass. and was the fourth out of twelve competing groomers to be clipped from the competition.  Here, Jessica answered our questions about her experience on Groomer Has It:

 

CDW: What do you think the main issue as far as the uniformity went in the Westie’s grooming? Was it poor leadership or supervision or something else?

 

My feelings on the situation with the Westie challenge is that we were unclear on how much help we could give each other. The Scotties group knew they could actually put there hands on each others dogs. Our group thought we couldn’t. I tried to help the best I could and Vanessa was located further away from the rest of us. She had the Groom so I tried to pay as much attention to how her dog was matching the rest of ours. I should have probably paid more attention to mine in the end since my Westie head would have turned out better if I had focused more on it. When Xavier came in to check the uniformity and said he wasn’t seeing it with us I noticed the back of my Westies coat was not as short as Casssandra’s and I made the mistake of just trying our a Wahl #1 on the back to see if it would match.. I found it did and then told them. I should have said something before hand because it really upset the team but I did personally find it did make our Westies look more uniform. I do take responsibility and I should have stepped up more but I knew it should have been Vanessa’s place to be leader and I didn’t want to step on toes, just wanted to help. In hind sight I agree though with the judges. If your gonna step up you gotta go all the way.

 

  CDW:  In retrospect, who do you really feel was the weakest member of your team in the grooming challenge?

 

  If I were to have picked someone other than me I would have had Marco in mind but in retrospect I believe they made the right choice. As much as that stinks to think or admit, but you live, learn and grow. I did my best and this is just a stepping stone to greater things in the future for me if I continue to learn from my mistakes.

 

 CDW:  If you could do it over, what choices would you have made during the grooming challenge to obtain a better outcome?

 

  Most certainly double check with the whole group before doing something. Also make sure that my dog was coming out the best. Even though it was a group competition its still an individual competition. My mistake was that I lost track of the competition and was more worried about the group and I didn’t commit fully either way which led me to an epic fail that sent me home.

 

 CDW:  Do you feel that the other groomers misunderstood what you were asking them to do in the grooming challenge ie: do you think you could have used better communication skills?

 

  I most certainly should have used better communication skills, I should not have acted on my idea without consulting the group. Even if it did work to our advantage, I still regardless should have spoken with them first.

 

 CDW:  Out of all the challenges that you participated in, which was your favorite, and which was your least favorite?

 

 I still loved working on the welsh having the challenge of fixing the groom and also grooming a dog I have never done before was great! I also loved her personality we had so much fun together.

 

  I had a couple least favorites, the creative grooming challenge was by far the worst experience. From every person on the team, we as a group failed. as far as the situation goes with the brush burn, because it was a big deal. There is,  always more to the story. I did admit to saying it could have been me but it also maybe could have been Mike. We both had brushed out the leg. He did before the bath and I did after the bath but we were also both going around the dog double checking all the legs.  There was alot left out but I wish they could have shown me saying it could have been me because I knew I had worked on that leg. Since I also knew Mike had . I had to bring us both up for blame and let the judges decide. I got lucky and got to stay, it was a humiliating way to start off on the show and I was very sad to see Mike go. I did like him.

 

 CDW:  Who in the Dog House did you feel you connected most with and who did you least have anything in common with?

 

 I really have formed a close bond with Chicken Joe, were both from Maine so I can go visit him when I travel up to see my family! We both just recently did a seminar together for NEPGP, we had such a great time together, he really is one of a kind.

 

 I had a hard time getting to know the girls in the house, I would like to get to know them more but I started off on a bad note with the first elimination since they didn’t get to see me own up in front of the judges and they all really liked Mike, it was just hard for me to get them to warm up to me after that.

 

Jessica, Celebrity Dog Watcher thanks you for your time! Good luck to you in all your grooming adventures!