Heads & Tails Grooming

About Us

Welcome to Heads and Tails Dog Grooming Service.

I’m Alli Smart, a fully qualified and insured dog groomer.

I provide a professional grooming service to help keep your dog clean, tidy and a pleasure to own.

Whether a full groom, wash and brush up or just a nail trim, I provide tailored packages to suit both you and your dog. I groom only to the very highest professional standards, recognising that each dog is individual.

Your pet’s welfare is my top priority, with each dog being supervised at all times and receiving my undivided care and attention.

Services

Full Groom
Grooming prices include a full consultation, nail trim (if required), ear cleaning/plucking (if required), luxury shampoo, blow dry and full groom. The average groom will take between 1½ – 2 hours and longer for larger breeds so please factor this into your schedule when booking an appointment.

Wash and Brush Up
This service is only available to customers who have their dog regularly groomed and has been kept matt free, otherwise an appointment for a full groom may be more appropriate.

Puppy Grooming
Dogs should enjoy being groomed and chances of this are greater if regular grooming is started from an early age. Little and often is best, starting with 20 – 30 minutes and building up as your dog becomes comfortable with being handled. If a dog can learn to have its feet and inside its mouth touched and inspected at an early age it can help to make life much simpler and less stressful later on during grooming and vets visits.

‘Puppy Grooming’ service is only available for dogs under 6 months old, that have been fully vaccinated.

De-Matting
Dogs with matted hair can suffer from pain and movement restriction (inner thighs can matt together), restricted blood flow to the extremities, reduced ability to go to the toilet (dried faeces blocking anus), reduced ability to keep cool, unnoticed weight loss, parasite infections, and undetected lumps, bumps and scrapes which may become serious or infected.

De-matting can only be offered to customers whose dog is of a suitable age, condition and temperament depending on the severity of the matting. If matting is severe or likely to cause pain and/or suffering the procedure cannot be undertaken as it would be a contravention of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Dogs that are heavily matted or become stressed by the process should be clipped off as a humane alternative.

Additional charges may apply, depending upon the severity of the matting.

Furminator Treatment
If your dog is a heavy shedding breed then this treatment is just what you and your hoover have been looking for. This treatment helps reduce the amount your dog sheds whilst at the same time cleansing your dogs hair and skin. The natural oils that coat the hair are not removed so the hair that is left behind is soft, shiny, smooth with minimal shedding.

Hand Stripping
This technique is used to thin, style and shape the coat of wire haired dogs or silky gundogs. Hand stripping helps to maintain the coats texture and make the colour appear stronger and brighter. Correctly done, hand stripping causes no pain to the dog and they often fall asleep during the process.

This procedure can only be carried out on coats of the correct texture and which have not been previously clipped. Neutering often changes the coats colour and texture and makes the coat unsuitable for hand stripping. This process is labour intensive and subsequently costs more than a regular clip/scissor groom. As dogs get older or develop medical conditions it is unfair for owners to expect them to stand for long periods to be hand stripped. As your dogs welfare is paramount it is much kinder to complete their groom as quickly as possible with either just a tidy up or a full clip off.

Nail Clipping
This service can only be carried out if your dog is compliant. Nail clipping is free as part of a full groom but can be done as an individual service between grooms if required. The full fee will be charged regardless of how many nails are trimmed. Sometimes it may not be necessary to clip all the nails.