After the Last Dog unpacks the everyday challenges grooming business owners face, offering expert insights and practical solutions. Join Dara and Jennifer as they share unique perspectives to help you transform your salon into a thriving, well-structured environment.
Featured Episodes
Meet the voices behind After the Last Dog. In these special “Meet Your Hosts” episodes, Jennifer Oppel and Dara Forleo share the experiences that shaped how they see grooming, leadership, training, and the future of pet care. Jennifer brings the employee and education perspective, while Dara speaks from the business owner’s side, because better workplaces for people and better care for pets have to be part of the same conversation.
Recent Episodes
Legacy or Liability: The People You Inherited — Clients, Team, and the Habits They Brought With Them
Nobody teaches you how to lead a grooming business, you just end up doing it. In the final episode of the Legacy or Liability series, Jennifer gets personal (without getting confessional) about the relational side of what you inherited when you opened, bought, or took over a salon: the clients still bracing for the last owner's mistakes, the team carrying in habits from every job before yours, and your own default version of "boss" that you copied from whoever you last worked …
Legacy or Liability: I’m Not a Manager, But I Own the Business
Many grooming business owners say, “I’m not a manager.”
But if you own the business, you still have to understand what each role is responsible for, what good work looks like, where employees have authority to make decisions, and how you know expectations are actually being met.
In this episode, Dara shares a lesson from her own business: having a few employees who naturally “got her” was not the same as having a management system. As the business grew, unclear expectations b…
Why Good Groomers Quit: Grooming Salon Safety | The Business We Inherited (Part 3 of 4)
Why do good groomers quit, and why do some never sign on at all? In Part 3 of 4 of The Business We Inherited: Legacy or Liability, Jennifer Oppel, founder of Growing Groomers and creator of Missouri's first pet grooming apprenticeship and RTI program, looks at the physical side of running a dog grooming business through the lens of teams and training. Your tubs, tables, dryers, products, and mobile grooming vans are quietly training your team every day, and the habits they teach get pas…
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