Why Groomers Cover a Dog's Ears When Blow Drying
Your groomer pulls a band over your dog's ears before the dryer goes on. Groomers say it does three jobs, and blocking the noise is the shakiest of them.
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A dog owner who'd decided to groom her own dogs posted in r/doggrooming with a question. Every groomer's photo she'd studied had the dog in a stretchy band over its ears, so she'd bought one, figuring it blocked the dryer. Then she tried it on her own head. It didn't block a thing.
So she asked the professionals what it's for, and the answers were more useful than the one she'd guessed. Two more threads of groomers comparing notes fill in the rest.
If you're about to dry a dog at home, or you've wondered what that band in the groomer's photos is doing, here's what they said.
The band in the photos
It's a Happy Hoodie, a tube of soft stretchy fabric that pulls over the dog's head and sits across both ears. Groomers like them enough that some buy their own and take them along when they change salons.
It holds the ear flaps down over the canal
The first answer she got was that on a floppy-eared dog it holds the ears closed, like cupping your hands over them. A groomer who works one-on-one listed keeping air from blowing straight down the ear canal among its jobs.
The maker's instructions say the same thing from the other end. Fold the ears down flat against the head so they cover the canal, then pull the band on over them. By the maker's own account, the ear placement and the squeeze are what do the work, not the thickness of the fabric.
In a thread among working groomers, one puts the band on nearly every dog.
I try to put a happy hoodie on every dog, unless they really fight it, then cotton balls in the ears. Those dryers get loud.
u/Usual-Lie-3382, in r/doggrooming
Does it block the dryer noise?
Not much, and the maker's own research page gets to the same place as the owner's ears did. Peter Scheifele, the researcher the maker had test the band, found a small amount of attenuation, and only in the higher frequencies. His view was that hearing damage isn't the issue with a dryer in the first place, and the maker puts the benefit down to calming instead.
The same researcher measured the dryers for a 2012 paper. At a metre, the four force dryers he tested ran at roughly 95 to 108 decibels. The groomers aren't wrong that they're loud. The paper's reading is that dogs aren't at imminent risk from a few minutes of it now and then. It also notes that groomers find dogs easier to handle with their ears covered.
The groomers themselves don't agree about the noise. The one-on-one groomer lists muffling first. Another only uses the band to dry the head and says most dogs don't care about the dryer noise.
A third finds it works great for some dogs and does nothing for the rest. The ones it helps are the dogs that are very sensitive to noise, not the ones bothered by the feel of the air.
It dries the head while they do the body
This is a job the groomers keep coming back to, and the one the owner hadn't guessed. The band is absorbent, and it sits on the wettest part of the dog. One groomer compares it to wrapping your hair in a towel after a shower.
It soaks up what the towel didn't get while the body is being dried. When the dryer finally reaches the head, there's less to do.
An owner in the same thread does exactly that at home. The dog hates having her head dried, so the band goes on while the rest of her gets done. By the time the owner reaches the head it only takes a light blow.
The one-on-one groomer, asked about a doodle's ears, said the drier the better. They say poodles and doodles can be prone to ear infections when moisture is trapped under the ear flap. That groomer cleans the ears with an ear solution after a bath to help dry them out.
It calms some dogs
The one-on-one groomer lists gentle pressure round the head among the benefits and says the band helps most of their clients. The first reply the owner got guessed at the same thing, the pressure being calming.
Not every dog agrees. In an older thread, a groomer said every dog they'd tried it on hated it and spent the groom trying to get it off or shaking. The reply was that most dogs chill after a minute, and that it helps a lot if the band isn't too tight. Another groomer there said their regulars now tilt their noses up to have it put on.
One salon went the other way. It told a groomer in training to stop using them, on the theory that the band is a way to skip drying the face, which teaches the dog to be scared of it. One reply saw the hole in that: you take the band off to dry the face anyway, so nobody's skipping it.
Expect a dog that tolerates it and is a bit calmer. Try it and see, as one groomer put it, and if the dog hates it, don't bother.
Cotton balls are the backup
Where a dog won't wear the band, groomers reach for cotton balls in the ears. A couple use both, cotton in after the bath and then the band over it.
The band earns its place there for a second reason. Dogs shake, and cotton balls fly out. The groomer in training had watched so many get shaken out that they bought their own bands. With the band over the top, the cotton stays put.
A towel wrapped round the head does a rough version of the same job for a dog that won't have either.
Which dogs should skip it
The groomer who doubles it with cotton balls draws two lines. The only time they don't use one is a dog thrashing to get it off. Flat-faced breeds like pugs get a looser band, and the groomer keeps an eye on their breathing and takes it off if it seems to bother them.
Snug or loose?
Two answers, and they're about two different jobs.
The maker's fit guide says a snugger fit is the one for a stressed dog, for reducing noise, and for a band the dog can't shake off. That's the dryer job.
The groomer in the older thread goes the other way: not too tight, and size up rather than squeeze the "correct" size on. That's about tolerance. A dog still getting used to the band, or a flat-faced one, gets the looser fit. A dog that's fine with it and needs it to stay on through the dryer gets the snug one.
Either way, measure first. The maker sizes them by the widest part of the head, tape over the ears. A band that's wrong by a size is either shaken off or too tight.
Start the way the groomers do, with a Happy Hoodie and a bag of cotton balls. Fold the ears flat, pull the band on snug, and dry the body first, so the head is half dry before the dryer gets anywhere near it. A dog that fights it gets the cotton balls and a towel round the head instead, which is what the groomers do too.
