What Does a Dog Groomer Do? Duties, Services and Responsibilities

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics files groomers inside its Animal Care and Service Workers job profile and describes their specialty as maintaining a pet's appearance: cutting, trimming, shampooing and styling fur, clipping nails and cleaning ears.

O*NET, the federal occupational database, lists the same work as tasks for the occupation groomers sit in: washing, brushing, clipping and trimming coats, cutting nails and cleaning ears.

The duty list is not dogs-only either — the BLS profile says groomers typically groom dogs and cats.

Between those task lists and the salon floor, the job runs in a repeating loop from intake to handoff:

• Intake check. The groomer goes over the dog before starting — coat condition, mats, skin, ears, nails — and confirms with the client what the groom should accomplish. O*NET includes examining and observing animals to detect signs of illness, disease or injury among the job's tasks.
• Bath. Shampoo worked through the coat and rinsed out — along with whatever the dog rolled in since its last visit.
• Dry. Towel and dryer work that leaves the coat fully dry and ready to cut. Drying is on employers' own grooming duty lists as well: Petco's Junior Groomer posting lists bathing, drying, nail trimming, brushing and ear cleaning among its duties, and Petco names dryers among the equipment it provides its groomers.
• Haircut. The clipped-and-trimmed cut the client asked for — a breed trim where the coat and the request support one, a practical pet trim where they do not. The tools behind the cut are a subject of their own: the dog groomer's tool kit.
• Nails and ears. Nails trimmed, ears cleaned. Both are named duties on the federal task lists, not add-ons.
• Finish and handoff. A final brush-out, a once-over for anything missed, and the dog handed back clean, comfortable and dry.

Where a salon employs bathers or grooming assistants, the bath and brush-out may arrive at the groomer's table as finished prep, and the groomer's own work starts from the haircut and the detail work.

What a dog bather does is its own duty list on this site.

On the salon floor, a matted coat, a wiggly dog or a nervous one can change the plan, and the groomer resets expectations with the client before the work starts.

How a working groomer runs each step is its own craft — the professional groom, step by step, walks the sequence from check-in to finish.

Grooming is the visible half of the job; the other half is people work.

O*NET pairs the grooming tasks with client work: discussing a pet's grooming needs with the client, answering the telephone and scheduling appointments.

The federal job profile adds two duties that happen in those same conversations: groomers sell products to pet owners, and they identify problems that may require veterinary attention.

The drop-off consultation sets the groom.

The client describes the cut they want; the groomer checks it against the coat, the dog's temperament and the condition of the skin, quotes the services and any add-ons, and notes anything that will change the plan.

PetSmart writes the front desk into its groomer job.

Its Pet Groomer posting lists greeting pet parents, handling reservations, making appointment reminder calls, maintaining client records, running check-in and check-out, rebooking clients and selling merchandise and services alongside the grooming menu itself.

The handoff closes the loop.

The groomer reports what was done and flags anything found on the coat, skin, ears or nails.

Between dogs, the station resets: hair swept, table and tub cleaned and disinfected, tools cleaned, laundry run.

Disinfecting follows each product's label directions, and clean tools go back where the next dog's groom can reach them.

Safety is continuous rather than a task on a list.

Groomers work sharp tools around a moving animal, so restraint and low-stress handling are part of the work.

Loops get checked before a dog goes on the table; muzzles come out when a dog's behavior calls for one.

The judgment to pause or stop a groom that is not working is part of the job too.

The practices behind those judgments are job skills of their own: see grooming safety for that side of the work.

Records sit behind the grooming.

What a client record carries — what was done, how the coat and skin looked, how the dog handled the groom and what to book next — depends on the salon's own system.

At least one employer writes the record-keeping into the groomer's duties: PetSmart's posting lists maintaining client records among them.

Bookings themselves run through salon scheduling software — O*NET lists grooming-salon scheduling software among the occupation's tools.

BLS lists the settings a groomer may work in: a grooming salon, a kennel, a veterinary clinic, a pet supply store, or a mobile grooming service — a self-contained business that travels to clients' homes.

The grooming duties travel with the groomer.

What changes by setting is the work around them:

• Independent salon. The full grooming menu, with front-desk work and cleaning shared across the team.
• Big-box pet store. PetSmart's groomer posting — the worked example in the section above — puts the front desk in the job explicitly. The worker's view of that job: working at PetSmart as a groomer.
• Mobile van. The van is the salon. The day adds driving between appointments and running water, power and waste water inside the van — van builder Wag'n Tails' spec sheet for its Quantum Groom Van, for example, lists fresh and gray water tanks and an onboard power system. Clients come household by household rather than at a row of tables, because the business travels to their homes.
• Veterinary clinic. The groom happens beside clinical staff, and the groomer's observations reach people who can act on them.
• Kennel, boarding and daycare. Grooming rides alongside kennel care, and a shift can blend grooms with walks, feeding and playgroups.

Two duties are not setting-specific: the groom itself, and the referral when something on the dog worries the groomer — BLS and O*NET describe both for the occupation, not for one kind of salon.

How the settings otherwise compare is the subject of our guide to where dog groomers work.

From the first bath to a salon of your own, the whole arc of the trade sits in the dog groomer career guide.

The clearest way to draw the groomer's job is at its edge: groomers spot and refer, and veterinarians diagnose and treat.

O*NET's task list for the occupation includes examining and observing animals to detect signs of illness, disease or injury and, for an animal that is sick or injured, contacting the veterinarian.

BLS puts the duty in plain words: groomers identify problems that may require veterinary attention.

The referral is the duty; the diagnosis is not.

• No sedation. The American Veterinary Dental College says prescribing or administering anesthetic or sedative drugs by a non-veterinarian can be very dangerous and is illegal. Colorado's PACFA grooming-facility rules add a state line for grooming facilities in that state: they may not administer tranquilizers, sedatives or any other drug designed to calm an animal during grooming. A groomer works on awake dogs; if a dog cannot be groomed safely awake, the groom stops and the client and their veterinarian decide what happens next.
• No teeth scaling. Teeth brushing is on PetSmart's groomer service list; scaling is not. The American Animal Hospital Association's 2019 Dental Care Guidelines for Dogs and Cats say groomers should never be allowed to scale a pet's teeth, and that scaling belongs to trained veterinary personnel working on an anesthetized animal in a clinical setting.
• Skin, lumps and ear trouble are found, not treated. A sore, a lump, an ear that looks painful or a coat that is thinning gets noted and referred. The findings groomers are taught to watch for, and where each one stops, are laid out in skin and coat problems groomers spot and refer.

Anal glands sit closest to the line.

Merck's Veterinary Manual does not recommend routine expression of normal anal sacs, and what a groomer may do about problem glands is a scope question that ends with the veterinarian and the salon's policy.

Career information, not legal or veterinary advice: scope-of-practice questions belong with a veterinarian, and facility rules belong with the state agency that administers them.