The Day After Groomer Has It: Recap Episode #5!

 

Well, as promised, the fur is definitely furiously flying at the Dog House on Groomer Has It!

With only 8 groomers out of 12 remaining, things are getting a little hot under the collar in the Dog House.  The concensus in the Dog House is that no more mistakes can be made if they intend to capture the title of Groomer of the Year!

Last week, as the groomers waited to see who between Krista nd Bill would be “clipped”, the tension was palpable. They all seemed to agree that Krista was the one who should be clipped, and seemed relieved when Bill returned alone to the Dog House safe. They were all amazed when Bill told them that the judges had told him that it was an extremely close decision.

Shortly thereafter, little Nemo appeared wearing a darling necktie, looking very dapper! He delivered the message that “It takes two to tango, but it takes four to tie the knot!”.  The two top scorers from last week, Danielle and Vanessa were instructed to each choose their team members from the 6 other contestants to make teams of 4 each and meet Jai in the living room.

Danielle wound up with Lisa, Cassandra and Marco pitted against Vanessa, Jessica, Bill and Hubert for the Quick Sniff Challenge.  As the challenge was revealed, last season’s Groomer of the Year, Artist Knox appeared with  his buddy Bumpy to tell them their challenge was to style topknots on four different breeds of dogs, making sure that the topknot was balanced, suited the dog’s face and was breed-specific. The teams were pitted against each other, with each team member competing against one of the opposite team’s groomer while they both had the same breed of dog. In addition, they had a  button they were to hit once they felt they’d accomplished the task to the best of their ability. If the groomer who hit the button first had indeed styled the topknot correctly, the team received a point and the challenge was over for that breed. If they had not styled it correctly, they both went back to work until one groomer had hit the button and had won that challenge. The breeds they each had to style were Shih-Tzu, Yorkshire Terrier, Maltese and Poodle. The challenge came down to the last two groomers, Bill and Lisa as they both felt extremely confident in topknotting a poodle! Unfortunately, Bill’s band broke as he was securing his dog’s topknot, Lisa hit the button and was deemed to have performed it to AKC standard.  Danielle’s team won the Quick Sniff challenge and were treated to a trip to the top of the Hollywood Hills for an afternoon of horseback riding which was enjoyed by all of them.

Once everyone was back at the Dog House, they found an invitation to the first Groomer Has It wedding!

As the “leg up” for having won the Quick Sniff challenge, Danielle was told she had until morning to decide if she wanted to exercise her option to switch out any (or all) of her teammates for any of the other teams’! She was very nervous about her decision, but ultimately opted to switch Marco for Bill and switched Cassandra for Hubert. She felt she had assembled the “Power Groomers” of the house, a comment that upset Cassandra and Vanessa.

Once in the judging room, the Bride and Groomer Has It Wedding challenge was presented to the teams: Each team would style either the bride and her bridal party; a group of Scottish Terriers or the groom and his party; a group of West Highland Terriers. The challenge was to not only make them beautiful, but to put together a uniform appearing bridal party and dress them appropriately.  Danielle’s team got to choose their group first and chose the Scotties (bride) because they felt it would provide more of a challenge.  That left the Westie groom and his party for Vanessa’s team. The teams had 2 hours to complete their grooming, styling and cut and get their wedding party into their outfits in time to walk down the aisle!

On Danielle’s team, Lisa immediately took charge, giving instructions and kept the team pretty much together as far as uniformity went. On Vanessa’s team, Jessica took the helm, telling her teammates what they should be striving for and how to accomplish it. The primary problem occurred under Jessica’s management when she had told her groommates to use a different cutting blade than she herself had used, causing them to all have to re-clip their dog’s coats.

Meanwhile, with only 5 minutes remaining, Hubert on the other team was having a major problem with his Bride! The poor dog was scared to death of everything on his grooming table and kept coming up off the table, while Lisa tried to hold her still with little success! They got the dogs attired with hardly a second to spare!

The wedding ceremony was performed by Jai, with Vanessa and Hubert reading the couple’s vows for them out loud. Lisa thought Mallory, the bride, had a more beautiful wedding dress than she had herself. The happy couple were pronounced man and wife and drank out of the same waterbowl to seal the deal!  The dogs were really adorable in their tuxes and bridesmaid’s dresses and the wedding cake was exquisitely darling!

After the nuptials, it was off to the judging room, where the judges closely examined all the dogs. Judge Joey Villani, seemed to be most pleased with Lisa’s result on her Scottie; in fact, he said he “loved that dog”! That’s the highest praise I’ve heard EVER on this show! Cassandra also executed a great job for the other team. 

Danielle’s team, spearheaded by Lisa’s expertise won Best In Show and it was apparent that Lisa carried the weight of the rest of the team. All members being safe, returned to the Dog House. 

Because of her great job on her Westie, Cassandra was also pronounced safe and returned to the house. Vanessa’s team did not meet the grooming standard and when individually asked, two of them thought Marco was the weakest link and should be sent home. Fortunately for Marco, the judges didn’t agree that he was the member who most let his team down in this challenge; that it was Jessica who had steered the team to failure and Jessica was sent home!  Bye bye Jess!

Next week, guest judge Janice Dickinson will work her own magic with the groomers as they try to turn back the hands of time for senior citizen dogs! Don’t miss it!