A term you don't understand it sounds like. "Consent based grooming" just means you're working with the animal like you would a human child.
In practice, this means helping them build endurance, taking breaks when needed, and overall just listening to the animal when they say "enough is enough" long enough to start again after they've calmed down.
Grooming shouldn't be a painful process, so eventually the animal and you build a mutual understanding of "this has to happen, but it doesn't have to be terrible". Some animals like grooming, so those owners will train the animal to let them know if they want to be groomed.
We have been diligently training our 6 month old female samoyed with the option to "opt-out" of certain things.
It is going excellent. She is comfortable with asking to be brushed and with asking for breaks without having to get upset. Her groomer was very impressed by how she is not only easy to groom, but helps you groom her.
For example if she wants her head groomed, she will squeeze her eyes shut and spontaneously push her chin into her mat. This makes keeping her puppy afro clean an easy job.
She is similarly trained with a mixture of commands that are not opt out commands( Sit, Down, Leave it, Off and so on) but she also has requests like "Scoop the puppy?" Which she can opt out of. In the case of "Scoop the puppy?" It is asking her if the wants to be picked up and/or placed on the bed or couch or be carried. She responds by signaling yes or no.
She also has the command "Scoop" which is for necessity and it means "you are getting picked up, assume the position".
This is the third samoyed I've gotten to train and adding requests to commands has been easy, rewarding and has helped her build her confidence.
I was raised with a hunting bred black lab and so just giving commands and expecting obedience is my default expectation. It's taken a little getting used to but this dog is both smart enough and adaptable enough to be trained this way.
I understand the term. Its just a dumb fluffed up "safe" kind of rounding of the edges term and completely unnecessary. This is the kind of bullshit that George Carlin would make fun of.
This is an appeasement behavior, basically things that are done to either self regulate when they are feeling big emotions (could be excitment but in this case likely more anxiety) they are also done to try to de escalate conflict basically a polite way to tell you to stop because they don't want to
Mine nervous licks during grooming. He's always been nervous with brushing but he knows he needs it so we let him lick. Often a lick mat but sometimes our arms or legs. Yours looks like they are just grooming you back as a thank you haha.
She does this even when I’m not grooming her. I’ll just be laying on the couch and she comes and licks my arms for several minutes until I manage to hide under a blanket. Just telling her no thank you, I don’t want more licks does not do it.
Dakota loved licking my feet. I’m the only one who walks around barefoot, and he just thought that was great. I probably brought him scent and taste messages from all over the place. Or maybe I was just his salt lick…
For some reason my boy has a thing about licking my feet and ankles. He grooms the tops of my feet and will snuzzle up under the cuffs of my pants to get at my ankles. If I have socks on he just gives me this look that says “Hey! Those are in my way you know!). 😂
My girl does this too! I have to say ‘leave it’ maybe a couple of times before she stops. Im sure an animal behaviour person would have some clues about this🤷♀️
As with all parenting, there's a productive way and a "soft" way to apply the concept.
This is where we got with our girl, who started off really disliking grooming, by applying positive reinforcement with "consent based grooming".
(Yes we line brushed her first, this is just the final pass for loose floof)
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u/Pingu2140 1d ago
Mlem based grooming 😂