The Sunflower Pet Salon

Petra and Orea are looking for a new forever home! These sweet twin girls will be going to a temporary foster this week and we would like to announce about their adoption availability.

Dash stole our hearts yesterday We absolutely love our puppies, he did great for his first visit! Text us for appointments at 916-969-3981 or book through Facebook and send us a message!

Baby Zorro for his first haircut limited availability this week, text in to 916-969-3981

Today we got devastating news that one of our favorite pugs have passed to rainbow bridge. Have the best life up in heaven Charlie as you are deeply missed

Excited new upgrades coming soon as we remodel our tub room next week! We will be closed from the 20th-23rd to work on upgrading our salon including installing new kennels, tubs and dryers. Thank you so much for your patience as we will be unavailable from the 17th until the 24th. We are booked until the 29th with limited availability on the 27th. We are excited to get back on schedule for our busy holiday months coming up!

NEW DYE ALERT We finished off the last of our old colors of dog dye and now have new options available! Stay tuned this week for more photos of our new service add ons! If wanting our dye services please mention upon booking your appointment so we can prepare for the extra time it takes. Thank you!

Have we talked about ‘Comfort Grooming?’ Do you know what that means? Well here’s a breakdown. There will come a point when your dogs haircut will be about 10%... determined by you and about 90% determined by them. When this happens your pup will have entered the comfort groom stage of their life. No matter how hard we try, how much you beg, or how sweet your dog is there is no way a senior dog will be going home looking the same as they did as a young puppy or a middle aged adult. Last week I let my 9 year old niece cut Remy’s hair and as I was teaching her the basics of grooming I found myself using the phrase ‘make sure he’s comfortable’ a lot, which got me thinking. Remy is a few months shy of his 12th birthday and his comfort level changes every day. He used to get super fluffy cuts with long beautiful ears and a big pompon on his tail. Now he’s clipped pretty short all over. If I’ve been with you through a pets aging we’ve probably had some difficult conversations about how your pups grooming evolves as they age. If we haven’t had to have those conversations yet hopefully this prepares you. Getting older affects them just as aging affects people. Their joints become stiff or sore, their skin becomes tissue paper thin, they start losing their sense of awareness, their muscles tremble, their balance is shaky and they get various skin blemishes and tumors. But how does this change their haircut? A poodle with arthritis in their toes for example might not be able to spread them apart to get those pretty shaved toes anymore and so we adapt and start doing a fluffier teddy bear foot. A schnauzer who’s developed some canine dementia might not tolerate having tangles brushed from his beard without panicking so we will start trimming it short to keep him calm and comfortable. A shihtzu who’s always had long hair might end up having to get a short puppy cut because their skin has thinned too much to handle the extra brushing required to maintain a lot of hair. A bichon who’s always had a pretty fluffy scissored bichon trim but when his joints start getting stiff and his legs start trembling we do a shorter cut that can be done faster. Along with these things are a few things that we ask you as an owner to remember. A comfort groom is not a show groom, odds are it won’t be perfect. We do what we can while keeping the dog comfortable which means sometimes there may be some slightly straggly looking areas depending on your dog and their individual issues. If they can’t balance on three legs without collapsing then their feet may still be a bit fluffy for example. Skin blemishes are annoying and moles in particular bleed if the wind blows the wrong way. We don’t intend to irritate them but sometimes the bath, drying or brushing can cause them to ooze a bit. Give us the time we need to get them done, rushing through a senior is dangerous for them and stressful. Occasionally we will have a senior who just can’t be totally finished in one session for whatever reason, either they’re having a particularly bad day and just can’t handle it or there’s something else going on with them. No matter how hard we try to make it easy on them grooming is still physically demanding for older dogs who usually nap 23 1/2 hours a day. We are stretching their legs out to shave them, manipulating toes to trim nails and turning their head side to side to trim it. If they start acting sore after routine grooming they may need a prescription for arthritis medication from your vet to be given on grooming days. These grooming decisions will always be made with your pups comfort as the ultimate deciding factor and after discussing everything we need to do with you because we do this job to help pets, not to hurt them for the sake of human vanity. Now hug your pups and cherish those grey whiskers.

Have you ever thought about how the evolution of default fear applies to our dogs? Let’s look at an example. Animals without automatic fear of heights will bli...thely step off cliffs. So if you’re a sheep that happens to have a fear of heights without having to experience the consequence of stepping off you will outperform individuals without this fear. And some of your offspring will inherit this tendency to not step off cliffs. Over time, you can see how such a trait could get pretty standardized in a population. In the wild, the cost of spooking at something that is actually safe is much less than the cost of trusting something that is actually dangerous. Assume it’s safe, and you might be removed from the gene pool. Assume it’s dangerous, and you avoid any potential threat. This drives the evolution of the tendency in animals to be fearful. Let’s remember this the next time we’re frustrated that our dogs are spooked by a garbage truck, or a stranger approaching them, or having their nails trimmed. They’re not being dramatic; they’re doing what they’re wired to do.

Hello! We are wanting to put out a notice once again on cancellations under 24 hours. In the last two days, we’ve had over $500 worth of cancellations that were unable to come in and that severely affects our business. We are booked out for a week for haircuts and it is very hard to call in customers last minute to try planning our day and for new dogs in. The business side of our page is never publicly put out there but we do want customers to be aware of how last minute cancellations affect us, and affect the rest of our week. Our policy is $15 added on to the next appointment of a future groom and $25 added if it was a specialty appointment that was missed. We understand life is crazy and these times are unpredictable, but please give us notice so we can fill appointment slots as quickly as possible.