Slow Season for Groomers: 10 Ways to Fill Days

Two Sundays with no dogs

A groomer near Dallas-Fort Worth posted that she had worked two Sundays in a row with zero dogs on the book. Not one. Within a day the thread had dozens of replies from salons saying the same thing in different words: five dogs between two groomers, six dogs between four, a Tuesday with one bath and a nail trim.

Nobody in that thread was a bad groomer. They were all in the same two months of the year.

If your book has gone thin and you are quietly wondering whether your clients have left you, read this first. Most of the time they have not. The grooming year has a shape, and late August through September is the bottom of it.

Why the slow season happens

Four things stack up at the same time, and they hit most salons in the same window.

Back to school. Families stop spending on the dog in August. School supplies, clothes, registration fees and sports kits all land in the same two weeks. The dog’s groom slides to next month.

The last trip before the holidays. Groomers describe a wave of clients taking one cheap vacation in September, before Thanksgiving prices kick in. The dog goes to boarding or to grandma, not to you.

The economy. When money is tight, a full groom becomes a bath, and an 8-week schedule becomes a 12-week schedule. Clients rarely tell you they are stretching out their visits. They just book later.

Nothing to show the dog off for. Between summer gatherings and the holidays, there is no event on the calendar that makes an owner look at a scruffy dog and think “we should get him done.”

The timing is not identical everywhere. Salons in South Florida describe the opposite calendar: summer is their dead stretch, because the snowbirds have gone home and will not be back until October. If you are in a resort, college or seasonal town, your quiet months follow your visitors, not the school year.

The shape of a typical grooming year

Period	What usually happens
January – mid-February	The long post-Christmas slump. Clients recover from holiday spending.
Late February – May	Steady build. Shed season and spring coat work.
June – early August	Busy in most regions. Slow in snowbird markets.
Mid-August – September	The deepest slump for most salons.
Mid-October – December 24	The rush. Most salons describe it as relentless.

Two slow stretches a year, then. The one you are in now is shorter and shallower. The January one lasts longer and hurts more, because it follows your biggest month.

Groomers in the thread were consistent about the turn: it picks up around the middle of October and stays “crazy” until Christmas. That is three or four weeks from now. What you do with these weeks decides how smooth the rush is.

What the slow season actually costs you

The empty slot is the obvious part. Two less obvious costs do more damage.

No-shows spike when the book is thin. The same clients who would never cancel a December appointment will drop a quiet Tuesday without a thought, because they can see you are not busy. An empty book invites more emptiness. This is the worst possible month to be running without deposits or card-on-file, and it is also the month when owners are most reluctant to ask for them. If you have been putting that off, read the hidden cost of no-shows and then set the rule before the rush.

Our guide to setting a grooming deposit policy without losing clients covers who should pay one, how much, and how to announce it.

Clients silently reset their interval. A client on an 8-week cycle who skips September does not come back at week 8. She comes back at week 14, matted, and the groom takes twice as long for the same price. That is the real bill for a slow September, and you pay it in October.

Over-hiring. Several owners in the thread described the same mistake: a few genuinely busy weeks, a panic hire, and then a slow month where four groomers split three or four dogs each. Commission staff on a thin book start looking for other work, and you lose them right before the rush. If you had a good August, wait two months before you add a person.

10 ways to fill the empty days

These are the moves salons actually described, plus the ones that follow directly from them. Pick three. Not ten.

1. Call your boarding and daycare contacts

The strongest idea in the whole thread. Boarding kennels are full in September while you are empty, because clients are travelling. Call the kennels and daycares within 15 minutes of your salon and offer a pickup groom: the dog goes home clean on the last day of the stay. Owners love it, the kennel looks good, and you fill a Tuesday.

Offer the kennel something concrete — a small referral fee, or a flat rate they can mark up — and give them a card they can hand over at check-in.

2. Run a nail-and-tidy day

One groomer advertised $35 nail grinds on Facebook Marketplace. Short, cheap services are the only thing price-sensitive clients will still book in a tight month, and they get dogs through the door. Block one afternoon a week for nails, ear cleans, face-feet-fanny tidies and teeth brushing, and list it where local people actually look: Facebook Marketplace, local Facebook groups, Nextdoor and your Google Business Profile.

Two rules: keep it to a defined window so it does not eat your haircut slots, and treat the dog’s first visit as a real check-in with a full profile, not a drive-through.

3. Work your lapsed list on purpose

Every salon has a quiet list of clients who used to come every 8 weeks and have not been in since June. In a busy month you never notice. In a slow month that list is your best source of bookings, because these people already like you and already have the habit.

Sort by last visit date and text the 6–10 week group first. They are the easiest to recover and the fastest to rebook.

4. Fix your rebooking habit now

The salons that suffer least in a slow month are the ones whose clients book the next appointment before they leave. One owner reported 97% returning clients on that habit alone. Notably, her 5% discount for rebooking at checkout mostly failed — clients said they did not know their schedule yet — but the question itself still worked.

A healthy standing book, by the numbers owners describe, looks roughly like this: 25–30% of clients on a 4-week cycle, half or more on 8–10 weeks, and 20% or fewer coming quarterly. If almost everyone in your book is quarterly, your slow season will always be severe.

5. Put a sign at the front desk

Low effort, and it works on the people already standing in your salon. One line on a small chalkboard or card by the till: a nail-trim price, a “same-week openings this month” note, or a holiday-booking date. Clients who would never read an email read the thing in front of them while their card is processing.

6. Plan the holiday rush in September, not December

October to December 24 is your biggest stretch. Decide now:

The date you open holiday bookings and the text that announces it.
Your holiday-week cut-off and whether you take new clients during it.
Your daily cap per groomer, so you do not sell a December you cannot deliver.
Any holiday add-on (bandana, bow, festive cologne, photo) and its price.

Writing the announcement text in a quiet week means you send it on time instead of three days late.

7. Time your price increase for January 1

A slow month is a terrible time to raise prices and a perfect time to prepare one. Pick the date, write the sign and the text, and give clients about 30 days’ notice. January pricing decided in September is calm. January pricing decided in January is a panic.

8. Catch up on the work you never have time for

Deep-clean the kennels. Service the clippers and send blades for sharpening. Rebuild your service menu so “bath and tidy” and “full groom” are actually defined. Finish the pet profiles that are missing a rabies date or a weight. Write the policies you keep meaning to write.

None of this bills today. All of it makes December cheaper. A salon that walks into the rush with sharp blades, clear service times and complete records loses hours less per week.

9. Take your vacation while it is cheap

Groomers made this point repeatedly, and it is the one most owners ignore. You cannot take time off in December. Flights and hotels in September cost a fraction of holiday prices. Closing for four days in the deadest week of the year costs you very little revenue and buys you the energy to get through the rush without burning out.

10. Sell something that is not a groom

Pet-sitting or drop-in visits for your favourite clients, during the exact weeks those clients are travelling. Several groomers fill September this way. You already have their keys-level trust, their pet’s medical notes and their phone number.

Retail is the other version of this: shampoo, brushes, ear cleaner, the de-shedding tool you recommend twenty times a week. Keep it small and keep it to things you genuinely use at the table.

Where Packyard fits

The hardest part of a slow month is simply knowing who to call. Paper books and group chats cannot tell you which clients are overdue.

Packyard keeps every client’s visit history, service and interval in one place, so you can pull the list of clients who have not been in for 10 weeks, see what their dog had last time, and send the group a text without typing a single name. The same records drive the rebook prompt at checkout, which is the habit that shrinks next year’s slow season. If you want to see it on your own book, look at Packyard for pet grooming.

Surviving the slow months financially

Two numbers to hold on to.

Keep three to six months of bills in reserve. Owners who have been through several cycles say this plainly. Rent, utilities, insurance, software and your own pay. Build the reserve in October and November, when the money is coming in, and treat it as untouchable in September.

Know your real fixed cost per open day. If you know that the doors cost you $240 a day whether or not a dog walks in, you can decide rationally whether to open on a dead Sunday or close it and send the staff home. Guessing leads to opening out of guilt.

If you are still building the plan behind those numbers, our grooming business plan guide covers the fixed-cost side in more detail.

Slow Season for Groomers: Why It Happens and 10 Ways to Fill Empty Days