710 S Main Street
Troy, IL 62294
618-505-7575
Grooming or relaxing getaway?
The Fetching Salon & Spa Difference!
The only luxury, all-inclusive grooming salon and spa in the area that has a fully certified staff with a groomer who has passed multiple behavior exams and focuses on advanced techniques and the only facility who focuses on creating positive conditioned emotional responses to all of our services for all of our guests. We are especially trained and sensitive to puppies and the elderly, handicap, traumatized, first timers, and pets with allergies and/or skin conditions. Our expert staff will go the extra mile to make your pet as comfortable and as relaxed as possible.
Conditioned Emotional Responses in Pets
In a pet’s brain, multiple transmissions occur, both chemical and electrical, that ultimately affect how the animal behaves, experiences emotions, learns, memorizes, and more. Because these connections are formed, they remember past experiences and will respond accordingly from reflex without any cognitive involvement. To put it simply, our beloved pets learn by association. For example, if a groomer always roughly grabbed Fido’s paw while filing his nails then the dog will associate the sound of the file with getting his paw grabbed roughly. This, in turn, triggers the fight or flight response making it impossible for us to keep the dog stress free when he hears the sound of the nail file. On the other hand, if the groomer always lets Fido nibble a tasty treat or gives Fido a relaxing massage every single time Fido gets his nails filed then he will begin to associate getting his nails filed with pretty cool things and he may even start to look forward to it!
Here are some of the many ways we practice building positive associations to grooming:
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Consistent food rewards throughout the grooming process! We even recommend not feeding your pet before they come but instead bringing their food with them so we can feed them throughout the process.
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Gentle Touching/Massage: On top of regular and soothing massages, we also practice gentle touching. For example, instead of instantly and bluntly grabbing the pet’s foot for a nail trim, we will start at the top of the leg and slowly work our way down.
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Lobby meet and greats: Our groomer will almost always meet you and your dog in the lobby to offer treats, pets, and a fun happy voice before walking back to the salon & spa together!
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For extreme cases we will split the grooming up into multiple small sessions throughout the day or even throughout multiple days so we can diligently work on desensitizing and counter conditioning the pet to enjoy the process
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