🚨🐶 Dog Grooming Businesses During Lockdown 🐶🚨
Many have been in touch with me over the weekend seeking clarification and advice on whether dog grooming businesses are able to open as they have received conflicting advice.
The list of businesses to be closed can be found here:
https://gov.wales/coronavirus-covid-19-closure-businesses-and-premises-0.
This list provides specific exemptions to the list of closures, which includes vets and pet shops, but not specifically dog groomers.
However, dog groomers which operate mobile businesses and pick up dogs from clients, and do not groom in clients properties, are permitted to continue operating as long as they abide by other restrictions including the need to socially distance.
The full advice from the Canine & Feline Sector Group (CFSG) who are advising the Welsh Government on this matter reads as follows:
Groomers and their clients should consider whether the necessary human contact and journeys are essential or in current circumstances may be delayed to protect public health. Grooming services present a challenge as there is a risk that the virus may be carried on the dog’s coat. Pets from households with coronavirus present higher risk given the nature of the service. In many cases, groomers may therefore consider that maintaining contact with clients remotely and offering advice to them about their pet’s coat is the safest outcome for all concerned. Government Regulations make it clear that an owner taking a pet by vehicle to be groomed is unlikely to be essential travel, however there may be welfare grounds on which grooming may be necessary, particularly if the lockdown persists. Mobile groomers may continue to operate providing that they can maintain social distancing. The handover protocol set out by CFSG should be followed with the owner retaining all equipment such as leads. The grooming facility must be thoroughly disinfected between pets.
Groomers whose business relies on pets coming to them can continue to work if they collect them and as long as they can disinfect their vehicle between collections and then only pets from one household should be collected at one time. A client may walk their dog to be groomed as part of the client’s daily exercise. Once the dog has been groomed either the dog may be walked home or the groomer may return the dog. Again the handover protocol set out by CFSG should be followed.
Only one dog may be groomed at a time and the dog should have left the premises, with disinfection of the premises occurring, before the next one is allowed to enter. Social distancing should be maintained at all times. In all cases payment should be made by card or BACS.
I can understand that confusion has arisen from the interpretation of the regulations in that some authorities see this as businesses closed while permitting mobile activity, while others see this as businesses able to open with some restrictions (i.e picking up dogs from owners homes), although both sets of advice result in the same level of permission.
I hope this clarifies the position for those who have received apparently conflicting information, which I can understand is not helpful at the moment.
Please get in touch with me if you have any further questions.
📧Anna.mcmorrin.mp@parliament.uk