Picture two dogs at our drop-off counter on the same Tuesday morning. One's a short-haired boxer who got skunked at the park and just needs to not smell like that anymore. The other's a doodle who hasn't seen a brush in five weeks and is starting to felt up behind the ears. Same counter, completely different appointment. And yet owners ask us for "a grooming" as if it's one fixed thing, then get surprised by the price. So let's clear this up for good. At our Ville-Marie grooming room we run three tiers: a Bath from $50, a Bath & Tidy at $75, and a Full Groom from $100. Here's how to figure out which one your dog actually needs, without paying for fur work it doesn't, and without skimping on care it does.
The three tiers, in plain language
A Bath (from $50) is exactly what it sounds like, with the essentials built in. Warm wash, a proper blow-dry, nails clipped, ears cleaned. No haircut, no scissor work. It's the right call for a dog whose coat is fine and just needs to be clean. The Bath & Tidy ($75) adds the light scissor and shaping work on top: a neaten-up around the face, the feet, the sanitary areas, a real brush-out. Think maintenance, the in-between visit that keeps a dog looking sharp without a full reset. The Full Groom (from $100) is the whole thing, a complete haircut and style to the coat.
That Full Groom bundles a surprising amount. The American Kennel Club describes a professional groom as brushing, bathing and drying, then trimming around the eyes, ear tips and the bottoms of the feet, clipping nails to a comfortable length, and cleaning the ears. There's also a quieter benefit they flag: all that handling means a groomer's hands catch lumps, bumps and skin irritations early, the kind of thing easy to miss at home under a thick coat. That early-detection piece is worth more than people realize.
Start with the coat, not the price
The honest way to choose isn't "what's cheapest," it's "what is this coat asking for." And coats vary wildly. The AKC's bathing guidance spells out the range: an oily-coated breed like a Basset Hound can need a bath as often as once a week, a medium-to-large coat can stretch four to six weeks if it's kept up between washes, and a long-haired breed like a Poodle averages a wash every four to eight weeks depending on how diligently it's brushed. That spread is your first clue about which tier fits.
Here's a quick way to place your dog:
- Short, smooth coat (boxer, Boston, beagle): a Bath is usually all it needs. No hair to cut.
- Curly or steadily-growing coat (poodle, doodle, bichon): the hair never stops, so a Full Groom is the baseline, with a Bath & Tidy halfway between.
- Double coat (husky, golden, shepherd, Lab): fewer baths, more deshedding. A Bath & Tidy beats a full clip almost every time.
- Long silky coat (Yorkie, Maltese, shih tzu): Full Groom on a regular cadence, or you'll fight tangles.
Why a plain Bath is often the right answer
We say this a lot, and we mean it. Plenty of dogs don't need more than a Bath, and pushing them toward a full groom would actually do harm. The AKC's advice is to bathe as infrequently as your dog reasonably needs, to protect the natural oils in the skin and coat. They're blunt about double coats specifically. Overbathing a Lab or a Golden Retriever can strip too much oil and disrupt the coat's natural insulating process, the same insulation that keeps these dogs comfortable through a Montreal winter and, weirdly, cooler in summer.
So if you've got a clean-coated, short-haired dog, or a double-coat between sheds, a Bath that includes nails and ears is genuinely the whole job. We're not going to upsell you a haircut your dog's skin doesn't want. That's not how we like to do things.
The Bath & Tidy: the maintenance secret
The Bath & Tidy is the tier people sleep on, and it's the one that quietly saves you money. Professional grooming frequency is flexible. The AKC notes a dog might see a groomer anywhere from every six weeks to three times a year, with brushing at home in between. The magic is in that "in between." When you brush regularly at home, your groomer isn't fighting four to eight weeks of accumulated knots, which is far more comfortable for the dog. A Bath & Tidy slotted between full grooms is exactly how you keep that rhythm without a major haircut every visit.
For double coats, the Bath & Tidy plus a deshed is the real workhorse. The AKC is firm that double-coated breeds like German Shepherds, Goldens and Malamutes generally should not be shaved, because shaving doesn't stop shedding. It just damages the topcoat, harms the insulating undercoat, and raises the risk of skin trouble and sunburn. What these dogs need instead is deshedding, a slicker brush followed by a comb at least once a week. And the undercoat is where most of the shedding happens. The AKC explains that a double-coated dog drops the undercoat far more than the topcoat, picking up as the seasons change. That seasonal turnover is the moment a tidy-with-deshed pays for itself, not a shave-down.
When it has to be a Full Groom: the matting line
There's one situation where the tier isn't a preference, it's a medical call: matting. A badly matted dog cannot get a basic bath, full stop, and here's why it matters so much. The ASPCA warns that even very mild mats can cause skin irritation and progress to infected lesions, and that in severe cases mats tighten until blood flow is cut off or they cut right down to the bone, with the worst cases needing amputation. That's not a scare story. It's the reason we sometimes have to clip a coat short rather than save the length.
The ASPCA also notes that medium-to-long coats need frequent brushing, some breeds daily, to prevent this in the first place. If your dog is already matted, that's a Full Groom or a de-matting add-on, not a bath, and we'll always tell you honestly when the kindest choice is a fresh short cut. The dog's comfort wins that argument every time.
The add-ons that actually earn their spot
Add-ons get a bad reputation as upsells, but a few of them are genuinely high-value across every tier. Nails top the list. Most dogs need a trim every three to four weeks, and overgrown nails are a real health problem, not a cosmetic one. The AKC explains that long nails can turn a sound paw into a splayed foot, reduce traction, and over time deform the foot and strain the tendons, because every step drives the long nail into the ground and forces the leg structure out of line. Good news: nails come standard in all three of our tiers, so that one's already handled.
Ears are the next one worth adding, especially for floppy-eared dogs. The AKC recommends cleaning ears at least once a month, more for swimmers, and notes that breeds with floppy ears like Bassets, Beagles and Cocker Spaniels trap moisture and are more prone to yeast and bacterial infections, so the ears need a thorough dry after any bath. Then there's anal glands. Plenty of dogs never need them expressed, but the ones that do typically need it every four to eight weeks, often timed to grooming. The AKC lists the tells: a fishy odor, scooting, constant licking at the rear, with smaller breeds and dogs with allergies or soft stool more likely to need it. It's a targeted add-on, not a default. For double coats in shedding season, the deshedding treatment is the one we'd reach for first.
One boundary we won't cross, and you should be wary of anyone who does: dental scaling is not a grooming service. The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association holds that scaling above and below the gumline, curettage and polishing are veterinary medicine and should only be done by a licensed vet. We're happy to brush teeth and talk home care, but anything past that belongs at your vet's office.
A quick Montreal money note
While we're talking dollars, here's a local cost worth folding into your thinking. A Montreal dog licence runs $31.80 a year and renews annually, and to qualify your dog has to be microchipped and sterilized. That microchip-and-sterilization rule isn't optional in this city. Under the Ville de Montreal bylaw, every cat and dog over six months has to be both microchipped and spayed or neutered, with narrow exceptions for registered breeding animals and documented medical reasons. Set against a recurring $31.80 licence, our $50, $75 and $100 tiers are easy to plan for, especially when you match the tier to the coat instead of defaulting to the priciest one.
Not sure? That's the whole point of the evaluation
If you're reading this and still not certain where your dog lands, you're exactly the person we want at the counter. New dogs start with a $25 evaluation so we can feel the coat, check the skin and the ears, and tell you straight which tier makes sense and how often. No mystery math, no surprise upsells. We can fold grooming into a daycare day so it all happens in one trip, set you on a recurring cadence that matches the coat, or coordinate it with in-home boarding before a trip. Tiny dogs under 10 pounds have their own gentle program too.
So here's the short version. Clean dog, simple coat: Bath. Maintenance between cuts, or a double coat in shed: Bath & Tidy with a deshed. Growing coat, or any matting: Full Groom. When in doubt, let us look. Book online, call us at (514) 778-CLUB, or walk into 1800 Sainte-Catherine St E and ask. Maïka, our three-legged Chief Dog Officer, will meet you at the door, and Max the Boston terrier (short coat, Bath-tier needs, very large opinions) will supervise the whole thing. Bring us the coat, and we'll tell you what it needs.