PetSmart Dog Training

This is specific to the grooming salon. This is probably one of the first reviews I’ve ever written, but I feel it needs to be done for the safety and concern of other animals. We dropped our 8 month old puppy off at 12:30 for a bath and grooming. At 3:45ish we came back to check on her and as we looked through the grooming window we saw the groomer (whom we had not scheduled with) holding her roughly by her ears and being EXTREMELY aggressive while brushing her with one of those wired grooming brushes. We stood there for a minute making sure we weren’t overreacting, more specifically me, because I’m a major Mama Bear to my kids and fur babies. My husband who is much more cool headed quickly became upset as well, and we soon realized we weren’t. On top of that we noticed she had only been bathed in the 3+ hours she had been there. I don’t always stay calm in these situations, so I told my husband to immediately go get her. My husband walked in and says I’m here to get Coco. The groomer says she’s not ready, to which he reply’s I’ll be taking her now. The groomer then says, I was just brushing the mats out. Mind you my husband had not uttered a single word to her about what we had just seen. She knew she was mistreating her and we had seen her. This is a well cared for puppy and with the longer hair she does sometimes get 1-2 smaller mats. I can tell you she had a small mat by her ear and a small one on her leg under by her tummy- she was brushing her WHOLE upper body and sides this way. It nauseates me to even picture it again in my head. She then proceeds to hand my husband an almost $40 bill. He walks out with our totally traumatized puppy and starts walking to the front to pay and I said I really think we need to talk to a manger. The manager comes over and we tell him what happened and he says okay… okay… okay and took the bill from my husbands hand and did not ask us to pay it. We found out our scheduled groomer (Lexi, who was fantastic last time) was unable to make it. So maybe this other groomer had been called in? We have bad weather, it’s Christmas Eve and I get all that, but professionalism is still required. I saw a sign they are hiring groomers, I hope their new policy is not to just fill the position with whoever, because the groomer today was nothing short of cruel to this little 8 month old helpless puppy. I shutter to think what her bath was like behind closed doors, especially if she could do something like I described knowing you can be seen through glass windows in the store. I’m officially petrified to take her back now. I’m thankful we just showed up, instead of waiting for the call they had finished like we usually do!