Become a special care groomer in a vet clinic.
A training program for groomers who want to take senior dogs, post-surgery dogs and anxious dogs — built on real clinic cases, ending with a final assessment and written feedback for each groomer.
- Who
- Groomers who already hold basic grooming skills. We recommend at least 3 years working as a groomer
- What
- Identifying a special care case, assessment, planning, handling and documentation — with most of the time spent on the handling itself
- Where
- At our studio in Lindfield
- Assessment
- A final assessment and written feedback for each groomer
- Bonus
- A follow-up session after the program. Groomers who perform well receive a reference letter from us and a place on our referral list
The judgement is the skill.
Handling and support positioning for special care dogs — dogs who cannot stand, cannot settle, or cannot tell us where it hurts. How to read pain and stress signals, and how to plan a session around them.
Practice, not theory.
You work on our own cases and watch special care sessions being run — the positioning, the pace, and the points where a session has to change. Assessment and planning are explained as we go.
A skill that opens doors.
Where this skill can take you —
Special care training is not only for special care cases. Any dog, at any age, can become one — through age, injury or illness — and the same handling is what keeps an ordinary groom safe on the day it does.
- A veterinary clinicapply as the groomer who can take the cases no one else can
- A grooming studioprice special care as a service of its own
- Your own businessprice special care as its own service, not an add-on
- Proof in handa certificate from us, and a reference letter if your work is up to standard
- Because you love dogsIf you love them, you do not want them afraid — or in pain that could have been avoided. A dog cannot tell you where it hurts — someone has to know how to look. That is worth learning properly.
At our studio in Lindfield.
Training takes place at our studio, with our own cases. Individual groomers come to us; the program outline sets out duration, group size and what the final assessment covers.
Ryohei Otaki
Special Care Grooming Specialist & Educator
Founder, Filicious Pet Services
Creator of the Special Care Dog Grooming program and the Puppy Classroom program (puppies under 16 weeks)
- Creator of the Special Care Dog Grooming program and the Puppy Classroom program for puppies under 16 weeks
- Trained at Yamazaki Gakuen College of Animal Health Technology, Tokyo
- Groomed inside Takano Pet Clinic in Japan, alongside veterinarians on live cases
- Senior groomer across Vetmed veterinary clinics in Sydney
- Invited by Pet Forest Trimming School in Japan to run a special care seminar for around 15 of their groomers
- Volunteer groomer at Monika's Doggie Rescue
Want the full structure?
Request the program outline — duration, group size and assessment criteria, in one document.
Request a program outline