Lisa Leady has a fair share of awards and recognition within the grooming industry, including a spot on Groom Team USA and the 2003 Cardinal Crystal Award for Congeniality, but now, she’s seeking recognition for the grooming industry on a national stage! Lisa is currently being featured on Groomer Has It, a fierce reality competition in its second season on Animal Planet.

We’ll be following her progress with each new episode, and feature tips, tricks, and observations based on the episode from Lisa herself!

Interview #2

In Last week’s episode of Groomer Has It, Lisa worked with some of the other contestants, on a party of Scotties! She was definitely familiar with her clients, so we’ve asked her a bit about working with that specific breed, and more about the stress of competition!

What was your experience with Scotties, before you were on the show?
I have a wonderful client that owns 2 show Scotties. I have not only been grooming them for the dog shows, but have also been handling them towards their AKC championships. I have worked with other Scottie breeders trying to perfect the Scottie "Look"

What are the unique challenges Scotties present to a groomer?
Scotties are terrific little dogs, but their spirited personality sometimes makes it difficult to achieve that "Keen" terrier expression that they must possess.

How does specializing in a specific breed of dog help with other breeds or mixed breeds?
Specializing in a breed helps your attention to detail in regards to purebred standards, which you can then transfer to other breeds.  With mixed breeds you take elements from many purebred trims to create a unique style, or to create a pure bred look in almost any mixed breed.

One of the factors in the challenge was to get a uniform look. How much more difficult is it to match someone else’s work than just to repeat your own?
Grooming is very much an individual art form; it is very challenging to achieve a unified look among multiple groomers. Repeating your own work is easy, once you fine-tune your own approach to your art.

When you're grooming in a competition -- whether it's a challenge on the show or at an Expo -- there's probably a lot of unusual distractions, including your own emotions and those of other competitors. How do you deal with that?
When competing I try to let my mind and hands do their best work, without being distracted by emotions, or the activities around me. I found that by not over thinking what I already know or second guessing myself I have much more success staying in my competitive zone.

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