Gucci Pooch Pet Salon owner Lisa Montoya has joined with the Mesa Public Schools Transition from School to Work (TSW) program to train special needs teens for future employment while they still are attending high school.
Lisa’s first student is a Mountain View High School 12th-grader (UpClose is omitting her name for privacy considerations) with speech and hearing impairments. “She comes to the salon three days a week for her fifth and sixth period classes to learn the basics of dog grooming,” Lisa related. “Her teacher, Keri Borstelmann, and a signing translator accompany her.”
According to the salon owner, dogs are great judges of humans. “The dogs really take to her, and I can tell she has a special knack for caring for them,” she stated.
Lisa starts out slowly and explains each step of the procedure, like acclimating the dog to the groomer, teaching techniques for holding and washing the animal, introducing the dog to a blow dryer and grooming tools, while adding a few more steps each time. “After several months of increasingly more difficult tasks, students will be competent to obtain work as dog washers. Eventually, they can move up to grooming the hair with clippers and trimming nails.”
A good groomer also learns to look out for physical impairments, such as ear infections or skin lesions, which are more noticeable during the washing procedure.
“Another part of the training is research on the Internet,” Lisa explained. “For homework, I have her research things like dog health issues and what hairstyles are particular to each breed. The more and faster one learns, the more opportunities will become open to them,” Lisa continued.
There are some very excellent but expensive textbooks available. If someone would like to donate toward them, it would be most appreciated.
“I wish I had had a program like this to groom me for this job,” Lisa admitted. “I started as a washer and worked for a salon for a long time. I learned cutting by watching the other groomers. They never trained me, and even though I knew how to do it, and they let me do the trimming, they didn’t pay me extra because I wasn’t trained,” she continued. “So, I know how it is to be a young person struggling to get a job. I hope this is just the first of many students I can help to learn the profession I love.”
Lisa’s big break came in 1990, when she answered the salon phone one day. “A woman asked if anyone there wanted to buy a salon with the phone number and 29 years of existing customers for $3,500,” she recalled. “I said, “Definitely,” and ran home to ask my dad for a loan. I was in business for myself the next week, and paid him back with my profits a week later. I have been doing this ever since.”
The TSW program, sponsored through the Arizona Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, is available through local high schools. “It is targeted to special needs students in grades nine through 12 who are eager to gain competitive employment,” Keri explained. “Businesses are not paid for their participation, and it is done on a voluntary basis. We always are looking for more businesses to offer training slots to our students.”
Any business wishing to become a part of this Transition from School to Work training program can contact the nearest high school, or Mesa Public Schools District Transition Coordinator Michelle Myers at (480) 472-0747.
Gucci Pooch is located at the southeast corner of McKellips and Recker roads. For more information, call (480) 335-4736.