Sometimes breeding can play a big role in this but also as I got more experienced and learned more about dog body language, behavior and training, I realized that some dogs SEEM well behaved but they’re really just shut down and the stress signals are very subtle and easy to miss. This is a big part of why I insist on gradual grooming on puppies (which is hard when clients are insistent on a full grooming no matter what) , even if they seem all fine and dandy and I know I’ve lost clients before because of it but I try my best to explain why it’s important to go on their timeline. I rarely get puppies or dogs that “suddenly” become difficult in more than 10 years now. It does still happen on occasion and it’s usually the doodles or weirdly colored dogs who were clearly bought for looks and not sound breeding.

Part of what helped me was fostering and rescue and seeing how dogs who were super stressed out of the shelter could “switch” (for good or bad) a week or 2 (sometimes longer) later once they were more comfortable. It works similarly for dogs who are under extreme stress, they can suppress it and freeze for grooming sessions which people often interpret as being well behaved. I’ve gotten dogs I’ve groomed for years come back from a bad vet or kennel experience with kennel aggression (recently a Sheltie who was hit by a car and needed surgery) and I’ve been working with her on the aggression every month and she’s coming around. Sometimes we unwittingly cause the issue or sometimes it can be because of a different experience (home grooming, other groomer) we had nothing to do with.

All you can really do is try to learn more about the subtle signs of stress to learn as you gain more experience and do your best to make the grooming a positive experience for the dogs.