Emilia Díaz

Al­though there were hair­dressers bathing dogs in the River Seine in Paris back in the 19th cen­tury dur­ing la Belle Époque, it wasn’t until 1938 that the first salon was opened for ca­nine hy­giene and aes­thet­ics. Since then, the pro­fes­sion of dog groom­ing has be­come more pop­u­lar and nowa­days there are even schools spe­cial­is­ing in teach­ing these tech­niques, such as the Emilia Díaz Ca­nine Groom­ing Acad­emy in Girona.

Emilia Díaz, who runs the cen­tre her­self, is adamant that dogs are part of the fam­ily and we must treat them just as well as we do other fam­ily mem­bers. Her phi­los­o­phy has made her one of the main pro­mot­ers of high-qual­ity ca­nine groom­ing in Spain. She em­pha­sises the im­por­tance of know­ing the spe­cific needs of each in­di­vid­ual breed and her pro­gramme, which com­bines the­ory and prac­tice, has been ap­plied in a num­ber of ac­cred­ited cen­tres in Brazil, Colom­bia, Costa Rica and Mex­ico.

Emilia has won nu­mer­ous awards in dog groom­ing com­pe­ti­tions. For ex­am­ple, she placed third as Spain’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the 2007 World Cham­pi­onship, which was held in the Ital­ian city of Ver­ba­nia, and there is the gold medal she won at the Ciseaux d’Or Cham­pi­onship. She has also served as a judge in other pres­ti­gious com­pe­ti­tions.

1.​The dog: the cen­tre­piece and el­e­ment that gives Emilia’s busi­ness mean­ing.

2. Pro­tec­tive cloth­ing: made from a spe­cific tex­ture to avoid col­lect­ing dog hair.

3. Hairdryer: a ser­vice­able de­vice that makes Emilia’s job eas­ier.

4. Elec­tric table: use­ful for en­sur­ing the dog’s cor­rect po­si­tion and com­fort.

5. Cord­less clip­pers: used for cut­ting and groom­ing.

6. File: for clip­ping the claws, or nails.

7. Combs: the basic tool for any hair­dresser.

8. Cos­metic con­tain­ers: there are es­sen­tial cos­met­ics for keep­ing the dog’s skin in good con­di­tion.

9. Scis­sors and clip­pers: with dif­fer­ent sizes de­pend­ing on their use.

10. Tow­els: also very im­por­tant.

11. Ster­iliser: used to dis­in­fect and ster­ilise the in­stru­ments .

12. Small hair bands: for pig­tails and bows, of course!

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