Organized Animal Care Has a History

The Pet Grooming industry has a very long story dating back centuries. We outlined it in an ACADA section named Skill History, available on this site. When pet grooming professionals approached us as developers (and fans of our own pets), we were excited to study the fundamentals of an industry which grew on its own absent a clear foundation. ACADA was built to provide that foundation, so the industry can continue as a healthy, self-regulated marketplace of professionals with better access to common information.

Pet Grooming is, indeed, different.

Veterinary care has been substantially regulated for centuries, originating in collectives such as the Worshipful Company of Farriers as far back as the fourteenth century. The care of horses had military significance, and was an early organized effort to provide substance to the trained treatment of animals. Veterinary colleges established in Europe in the 18th century began the functions of treatment protocol and associated regulation we recognize today. Animal disease was learned to correspond with numerous aspects of our food supply hundreds of years ago, and concerns for cattle care became prominent in the late 1700s. Animal care became such a national concern that the US Veterinary Medical Association emerged during the Civil War. Today, the veterinary industry is a robust network of organized schools, advanced medicine and a matrix of rigorous regulatory bodies.

Pet Grooming is far different, as the vast majority of actual clients are household pets and the people who care for them. Surgical, pharmaceutical and food supply chain issues are strictly relegated to the veterinary industry. There is no imminent national concern regarding pet grooming regulation, and the industry has largely been unbothered.

These are absolute basics — clean kennels with proper food, adequate water supply and proper space to move with access to care when necessary — and we support them.

---

Studying the Market as a Consumer

Our initial study of the market was to gain an umbrella view of the entire pet grooming industry, and learn clearly how we could help organize what numerous pet groomers recognize as an industry need.

In studying the industry from the consumer angle, we focused on access to accurate information about businesses and ample information about services (and scope of services). The industry has developed a common menu of services which tends to be practiced in a commonly understood way. The standard for those services has tended to be satisfaction of the client — an appropriate guardrail. Nevertheless, we found vast differences exist in salon preparation, cleanliness and public documentation of services, skills and prices.

As we knew ACADA would include comprehensive curriculum, we decided early on that a foundation in business practices, ethics and common small business concepts would be a necessary aspect of helping a pet grooming business shore up its fundamentals. We developed six curriculum levels, known as PET Tracks, which each train on core concepts in a cumulative way.

We found the consumer is largely presented with no common standard, and that many pet grooming professionals used social media pages and booking platforms as their exclusive public presence. We knew this would be part of ACADA’s success formula for pet groomers — to encourage a more professional presence with better information. So we established our profile system to follow pet grooming businesses and individual professionals, allowing them to present core necessary information and use the ACADA profile as their own website if they wish. As time progressed, we saw more services pet groomers needed. And we were determined to provide them within a single system priced where any business or serious pet grooming professional could easily access it. We believe we’ve achieved that, and are proud of what has been built.

---

Searching as a Consumer

As we studied the industry “as a consumer,” we would pick markets and place ourselves in the position of needing specific services for a range of client scenarios. Perhaps we had an unruly dog, an older cat with medical issues, an unusual breed with known allergies. Maybe we were searching for a service animal, a pet with hip dysplasia, sensory impairment or a recent rescue about which we knew little. As a consumer, these searches were daunting.

We will help our members communicate better, across all channels, and we will not charge extra for it. We will keep building our tools.

---

The Professionals We Found

We learned professional pet groomers themselves are an outstanding group. They love pets, they (usually) adore their clients and they handle a surprising variety of situations with steady calm and tremendous care. Yet, as with any industry, some are better in their practice than others. Some prepare their baseline business organizations better. Some have a finer attention to process, daily sanitation regimen, business practices, skill improvement, maintenance of tools and surroundings and even adherence to general ethics in a more responsible way than others.

Public commentary across platforms didn’t tell the whole story, but it is established themes which often show some professional pet groomers have challenges with certain aspects of their business. This is real in every industry.

ACADA intends to provide substantial help through the ACADA Standard and all our other programs which our members can access and use for voluntary improvement. The ACADA Standard is published open and free for anyone to read and use as a baseline for their own policies, procedures and development.

---

How the Leaderboard Emerged

The Leaderboard emerged as we wanted to present a tier of top performance worth emulating first, and then further improving next. Through ACADA, we will provide resources to make every professional pet groomer stronger, more organized, better prepared and presented.

The Leaderboard is those professional pet groomers who have emerged with the industry’s best performance today in and around our Top 100 US Markets and some key North American locales. The Leaderboard will be an achievement which can be earned by any professional pet groomer, and we’ll provide the tools to help.

---

Independence and Transparency

Going forward, the Leaderboard will be a member services feature with baseline requirements which must be met. There will be no additional cost whatsoever for inclusion on Leaderboard for our members who achieve this standard.

As ACADA is entirely voluntary by structure, we do not expect every pet grooming professional to desire Leaderboard positioning. There are thousands of truly great pet groomers who achieve excellence every day all on their own. What we do want is to help every ACADA member perform better as businesses, produce more and happier clientele and use our services as they wish to achieve as much as possible in this excellent industry.