Team Development Episodes

The first-date version is not always the workday version. Hiring can feel a lot like dating. You place the ad. Someone looks great on paper. They say the right things. You get hopeful. Then they start working in the salon, and the person you met in the interview is not the same person showing up on a busy day. In this episode, Dara talks about why a good interview is not proof of a good fit. You will learn why applicants may present their best version, why owners often hire from hope, and how ...

Are you spending your late nights sifting through hundreds of mismatched resumes on Indeed, only to get ghosted by someone who promised to show up at 9:00 AM? In this episode of After the Last Dog, we dissect exactly why hiring is so exhausting for salon owners and how to fix it. We look at why treating your recruitment like a high-stakes emotional investment is destroying your operational focus. Discover the exact framework that forces bad applicants to self-select out before they ever waste y...

Why Should the Right Groomer Choose Your Salon? Every salon owner wants one solid groomer. Someone who cares about the dogs, shows up, communicates, and helps make the day easier. But good groomers are looking too. They are not only looking at pay, schedule, or how many dogs they can take. They are paying attention to how pets are handled, how the team works when the day gets busy, whether people help each other, and whether the salon feels like a place where good work matters. In this episo...

In this episode of After the Last Dog, Dara talks about something many grooming and pet care business owners know too well: you can be standing in your own salon all day and still not have time to be the owner. When you are grooming, you need to focus on the dog in front of you. But the business does not stop moving while you are behind the table. Staff are making decisions, clients need answers, and the same issues can keep coming back because nobody has decided how they should be handled. ...

Are you trapped by the very business you built for freedom? If you feel like you can’t step away from your salon for a single day without your staff slacking off, sitting on their phones, or ignoring basic protocols—this episode is your wake-up call. Host Jennifer breaks down the hard truth: your team isn't failing because they are inherently lazy. They are failing because your operational standards only exist inside your own head. When you rush in to finish their chores just to keep the peace,...

In this short introduction, meet Jennifer Oppel, co-host of After the Last Dog and founder of Growing Groomers. Jennifer has spent 35 years in the grooming industry, including 25 years as a salon owner. Her work focuses on helping grooming and pet care businesses make training clearer, expectations easier to communicate, and daily salon operations more practical for real working businesses. Jennifer is the sponsor of Missouri’s first state-registered pet grooming apprenticeship, a Master Canin...

You have the checklist. You have explained the process. You may have even shown the team more than once. So why are they still coming back to you with the same questions? In this episode of After the Last Dog, Dara talks about one of the most common owner frustrations in grooming and pet care businesses: repeat staff questions that should already have an answer. Using a simple cleaning checklist example, Dara breaks down why this may not be a “they don’t care” problem. It may be that the team...

I'm Dara Forleo, and before we talk about standards, pricing, hiring, training, and business growth, I want to share why this podcast exists. In this special introduction, I share my journey in the grooming and pet care industry, the lessons I've learned as a business owner, and why I believe owners deserve practical support that respects what they've already built.

A full schedule can look like success from the outside. Dogs are booked. Clients are waiting. The phone keeps ringing. But inside the salon, it may still feel like the whole day depends on the owner keeping every person, pet, and decision moving. In this episode of After the Last Dog, we look at why being booked out does not always mean the business is actually getting ahead. Sometimes the problem is not a lack of clients. It is unclear roles, uneven skill levels, developing staff being schedul...