Grooming School Turns Out Workers for $70B Pet Industry

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ROYAL OAK, MI – Your dog’s hair doesn’t just fall into place, by itself, you know.

But the most important skills you’ll learn at a new Royal Oak beauty school of sorts, The Bingo Institute of Grooming, don’t involve just artfully coiffing cats and canines and clipping their nails, but also how to keep them looking good without injuring them — or getting bitten or scratched yourself.

The Bingo Institute in downtown Royal Oak trains pet groomers for the pet industry, one of America’s fast growing sectors.

Americans plunked down $60 billion last year to pamper their pets — $5.24 billion of it on pet grooming services — in 2015, according to a spending outlook from the American Pet Products Association. Spending on pets will increase to more than $70 billion by 2018, the APPA projects.

To supply the skilled workers needed in the growing industry, the school offers classes for bathers, grooming assistants, vet assistants and professional pet groomers, according to the school’s website. Rigorous dog and cat grooming classes teach techniques, but also everything from how to recognize aggression and other behaviors in pets to how to interact with clients to how to keep grooming salons clean and safe.

The training can be completed in as little as four months, or it can go longer at full curriculum tuition costs of $6,000 to $7,000, The Daily Tribune reports.

Co-owners of of the school are Brian Lane, of Ferndale, and Jessica Conway, of Royal Oak. Both operate their own grooming salons: Conway is the longtime owner of Pet Spa Grooming in Plymouth, and Lane owns Bingo Pet Salon, which is near the school. Both also know how hard it is to find properly trained employees.

“In our business, we have realized how difficult it is to find skilled, dedicated and properly trained groomers,” Lane, of Ferndale, told The Daily Tribune.

The school has been in development for two years, said Lane, the business and marketing partner in the team behind The Bingo Institute. Conway is the education director.

According to the website Salary.com, pet groomers earn an average of $32,000 a year. Lane called it a “great career” choice that offers the flexibility of full- and part-time positions.

“For parents, who want to drop their kids off at school, and be home before they are, many groomers go into work around 8 or 9 in the morning and can be done by 3 p.m.,” he said.

» Photo by @windygig via Flickr / Creative Commons