Several employers will pay you while you learn to groom.
PetSmart moves new salon hires from bather work into its paid Grooming Academy, Petco starts every future Petco Certified Pet Stylist with a paid 20-week certification program, and independent salons can train the bathers and assistants they hire.
The Department of Labor's Office of Apprenticeship recognized Pet Groomer as a new apprenticeable occupation in January 2026.
This page compares the paid routes — and the contracts that can come attached.
Can You Get Paid While Learning to Groom?
Yes — and at more than one kind of employer.
Paid training as a dog groomer comes in three shapes: a big-box store's in-house academy, a salon's own train-up program, and a registered apprenticeship.
The deal on these routes: you are hired into an entry seat, and the employer teaches you the craft on live dogs while you work.
That is the reverse of grooming school, a tuition-based program you pay for before the job.
Grooming school is still the better fit for some career changers; for the full route map, our guide to how to become a dog groomer compares every path in order.
Paid does not mean commitment-free.
An employer that spends weeks of paid training on you may ask for something back — a schedule commitment, or a training agreement with a repayment clause, which this page takes up in its own section below.
What you earn while you train is each employer's own decision.
Every pay figure on this page comes from an employer's or program's own published page, so treat the numbers as posted offers, not market rates.
Big-Box Grooming Academies: PetSmart and Petco
The big-box pet stores run structured, paid in-house training, and both chains describe it on their own careers pages.
PetSmart's path starts in the tub.
Its careers page says new salon hires start training as bathers and bathe over 125 dogs before attending its paid Grooming Academy, a 4-week, 160-hour classroom program led by District Academy Trainers.
The academy is not the finish line.
A trainee then grooms 200 dogs and passes a technical assessment from a District Academy Trainer to earn the PetSmart Pet Stylist title, and PetSmart describes the overall program as including over 800 hours with more than 200 dogs.
For the title at the end of that path, PetSmart's careers page states that its Pet Stylists earn a guaranteed hourly wage and up to 55% commission, plus 35% off grooming tools — that employer's own posted figures, not a market rate.
Petco builds the same idea into one long program.
Petco says every Petco Certified Pet Stylist begins with a paid 20-week certification program.
Its careers page also shows the ladder's stages: Junior Groomer, with 12 weeks of paid training in bathing, drying and safety, then Pet Stylist Apprentice, with 6 weeks of paid training taught by an instructor or mentor.
Beyond the apprentice stage, the ladder runs Groomer, Pet Stylist Pro, Grooming Salon Manager and Instructor.
The same page carries both the 20-week headline and those stage figures.
Access to both academies runs through hiring, not enrollment: PetSmart's path starts with a salon hire and Petco's ladder starts at Junior Groomer, and both companies describe the training itself as paid.
The titles at the top of these ladders are the employers' own.
PetSmart Pet Stylist and Petco Certified Pet Stylist are titles awarded inside each company's program; what you carry to any salon is the hours on real dogs.
Franchise and Salon In-House Training
Not every paid training seat has a corporate curriculum behind it.
Franchise grooming salons and independent salons both train on the job — who sets the deal is what differs.
At a franchise brand, the location is the employer.
Scenthound says each location is independently owned and operated by a franchisee, and that employees at a franchise location are employed solely by that franchisee, not by the franchising company.
Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming says the same: hiring decisions, job duties and all employment practices are made exclusively by the individual franchisee at each location.
That matters for training: published training programs for these brands were not something our research could verify, so the training plan, the pay while you train and any agreement attached to it are questions to put directly to the franchisee that would employ you.
An independent salon can run the same model with one fewer layer: the owner or head groomer is the teacher.
A salon that wants groomers can hire a bather or grooming assistant and promote from the tub, teaching clips as you go.
The seat has a name and a career guide of its own.
Our overview of grooming apprentice jobs covers the day-to-day work.
The move itself — what to learn as a bather, how to ask for training, and what the timelines look like — is the subject of From Dog Bather to Groomer.
Registered Apprenticeships: Paid and Formal
The newest paid route is also the most formal.
In Bulletin 2026-22, dated January 27, 2026, the US Department of Labor's Office of Apprenticeship recognized Pet Groomer as a new apprenticeable occupation, approved on January 16, 2026.
The occupation carries RAPIDS code 4024HY, sits under O*NET-SOC 39-2021.00 and uses a hybrid training type.
O*NET, the federal occupational database, lists Pet Groomer alongside Horseshoer among the DOL-approved registered apprenticeship titles for SOC 39-2021 — animal caretakers, the group that includes groomers.
Registration is what makes the pay structural.
Registered apprenticeship standards must include a progressively increasing wage schedule, and an apprentice's entry wage may not be below the FLSA minimum wage where it applies — so a registered grooming apprentice cannot be an unpaid trainee.
A national template now exists too: Bulletin 2025-158, dated August 18, 2025, approved National Guidelines for Apprenticeship Standards submitted by Groom Curriculum, covering the occupation Animal Groomer on a competency-based model.
National guidelines work as a template — a sponsoring employer adopts them and registers its local program with a DOL Office of Apprenticeship State Office or a State Apprenticeship Agency.
In Groom Curriculum's registered model, apprentices are the salon's paid employees, learning under the supervision of a journeyworker mentor.
The program pairs paid on-the-job learning in the employer's salon with online related technical instruction, typically running 12 to 24 months, and its $750 one-time fee is charged to the employer, not the apprentice.
How long the DOL occupation itself takes is not stated in the bulletin.
The Pet Groomer bulletin restates the federal apprenticeability floor — at least 2,000 hours of on-the-job learning plus related instruction under 29 CFR 29.4 — but does not state the occupation's own hour total.
How informal and registered programs differ, and how to land one, is the subject of our guide to the dog grooming apprenticeship.
Training Contracts and Repayment Clauses
Paid training can come with paperwork.
The same employer that pays for weeks of your training may ask you to sign a training agreement — a contract obligating you to stay a set period or repay training costs if you leave.
This is not a hypothetical in grooming.
On July 29, 2025, the Colorado Attorney General sued PetSmart in Denver District Court under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.
The suit alleges PetSmart advertised its Grooming Academy as "FREE" and "PAID" while having trainees sign training repayment agreements requiring them to stay at least two years or repay $5,500 — $5,000 if they turned down a provided toolkit.
As the complaint describes it, the obligation applied whether the employee left voluntarily or involuntarily and was not prorated: leaving after 11 months meant owing the full amount, and after 23 months, still 50%.
On November 13, 2025, the Colorado Attorney General announced a proposed settlement, subject to court acceptance.
Under it, PetSmart would stop deceptive advertising, stop offering training repayment agreements that violate Colorado law, halt collection attempts, notify Grooming Academy completers that they are free of those obligations, and pay $225,000 to the Attorney General's office.
The suit's figures are the Attorney General's allegations as filed, and the settlement was announced as proposed; our research did not confirm whether the court has accepted it.
This is a Colorado action, and the announcement does not say whether the commitments reach beyond Colorado.
California has addressed the practice by statute.
AB 692, chaptered in 2025, added Business and Professions Code section 16608.
Contracts entered on or after January 1, 2026 may not require a worker to repay a debt or pay a penalty, fee or cost — including a "retraining fee" or "quit fee" — if employment ends.
The statute carves out limited exceptions, such as DAS-approved apprenticeships and certain transferable-credential tuition repayment.
Whether a particular program or agreement falls in those exceptions is a question for the employer and the state — one more thing to confirm before signing.
What does this mean if a job offer comes with training attached?
Ask to see any training agreement before you accept the role, not after.
Read what triggers repayment, whether the amount steps down over time, and whether it applies if the employer ends the job.
Then check your own state's law, because this is state-by-state territory and it is moving.
The two dated actions above are Colorado's suit and California's statute; neither addresses agreements in other states, and our research verified no other state's rules.
What an agreement in your state requires of you is a question for your state labor agency or an attorney.
A training agreement is a contract — get it before you sign
How to Find Groomer-in-Training Jobs
Look for the training inside the entry job, because that is where it lives.
The titles to search: bather, grooming assistant, grooming apprentice, junior groomer and pet stylist apprentice — the last two are Petco ladder terms.
- Search the entry titles directly: our dog bather job listings, grooming assistant listings and grooming apprentice listings collect them by role.
- Apply to the big-box salon pipelines — PetSmart's academy begins from a bather hire and Petco's ladder begins at Junior Groomer, so the entry posting is the training door.
- Ask each franchise location what it teaches new groomers and what trainees are paid: at these brands, hiring decisions, job duties and employment practices are made exclusively by the franchisee at each location.
- Walk into independent salons and ask who trains new hires, in what order the skills come, and when a trainee starts taking grooms of their own.
- If a salon mentions a registered apprenticeship, ask who sponsors it and confirm the registration with DOL's Office of Apprenticeship or your state apprenticeship agency.
- Before you accept any training seat, ask whether a training agreement comes with it — and read it before signing, not after.
For the whole route map — school, apprenticeship, academy and the bather's tub in order — our guide to how to become a dog groomer lays out each path step by step.
Career information, not legal advice: training agreements, wages and apprenticeship registration are governed by state and federal law. Confirm any agreement with your state labor agency or an attorney, and any program's registration with DOL's Office of Apprenticeship or your state apprenticeship agency.