For 20 years, professional dog groomer Joan Payton has volunteered her time to care for dogs \u2014 hundreds of shelter dogs \u2014 to make them cuter and cuddlier, healthier and happier, and make adoption much more likely.<\/p>\n
Her magic worked again Friday at the Kern County Animal Shelter when a 1-year-old mixed breed named Lionel was adopted to a forever home just hours after a doggie spa treatment transformed him from dirty stray to handsome pet, courtesy of Payton.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoan has been here longer than 99% of our employees, including me,\u201d said Nick Cullen, director of Kern County Animal Services. \u201cI have an incredible amount of respect for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because Payton, 66, not only grooms dogs and bathes them and trims their nails and talks to them as if they understand her every word, she also saves their lives.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the whole point.<\/p>\n
It was 9 a.m. Friday when Senior Animal Care Worker Taylor Meade brought Payton a 2-year-old shih tzu, a pitiful 17 pounds of filthy, snarled, matted, frightened former pet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis little guy seems really nice and well behaved,\u201d Payton said after she used electric clippers to begin taking off the dog\u2019s soiled coat.<\/p>\n
It was a slow, painstaking process.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s doing really well,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019s terrified. Sometimes they\u2019ll be so scared that they just don\u2019t breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she worked, she discovered foxtails that had been embedded in his skin and between his toes. It\u2019s no wonder he tried to pull away when Payton\u2019s clippers and scissors came anywhere near his paws or his face.<\/p>\n
One of his eyes looked like it needed some attention as did a red spot on his face. So Payton made some notes she will share with the shelter\u2019s veterinary services, asking them to check out those trouble spots.<\/p>\n
The 2-year-old lap dog had not yet been given a shelter name. But the shy, gentle orphan certainly needed a home and a family. His ID adoption number at the shelter was A1255648.<\/p>\n
Payton has been grooming dogs since the early 1980s, but she no longer works in a shop for eight or nine hours a day, grooming one pet after another.<\/p>\n
But she still styles a few show dogs and family pets for friends, especially older dogs, which she believes should not be made to wait three or four hours to be groomed.<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t come to the shelter every month for the money. Volunteers are not paid. And she doesn\u2019t do it for the recognition. Getting her to say yes to this story really took some doing.<\/p>\n
What she loves, besides the animals themselves, is the idea that a family or an individual can arrive at the shelter, see one of her freshly groomed canines, and immediately fall in love.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not easy being that good at your work. The cramped room she toils in at the Fruitvale Avenue shelter can get hot and humid. The animals are stressed and sometimes behave accordingly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been bitten more times than I care to realize,\u201d she said of her 45 years as a dog groomer.<\/p>\n
But surprisingly, getting nipped by a shelter dog has been quite rare.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the only dog that\u2019s gone after me here was years ago, and he didn\u2019t break the skin,\u201d she remembered.<\/p>\n
One problem she and her fellow shelter volunteers and staff have seen over the years is that too many people take in dogs without ever thinking about whether they are willing or able to give their pet the care and attention it needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s shocking and amazing sometimes that people don\u2019t seem to know,\u201d she said. \u201cYou would think in this day and age that people would be like, \u2018Oh, I have a pet, I need to take care of it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, Payton received an urgent call from the shelter asking her to come in to help with a dog that had just come through intake.<\/p>\n
The stray was a mess, and he was suffering as a result.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took me four hours to take care of that dog,\u201d she said. \u201cI think he picked up every burr in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time Meade, the animal care worker, brought in Lionel, dog No. 2, Payton was feeling the nearly two hours of work she\u2019d already completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not matted, so I can put him in the tub and find out what color he is,\u201d she said of Lionel. \u201cAs you can see, this isn\u2019t a clean dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she wet him down, an odor started rising that hadn\u2019t been immediately apparent before.<\/p>\n
\u201cEww, you\u2019ve been skunked,\u201d Payton said to Lionel. \u201cYou\u2019re a dirty, dirty dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
But after a thorough shampoo, a blow dry, some moderate clipping and brushing, Lionel\u2019s name had been properly lengthened to Sir Lionel the Lionhearted.<\/p>\n
A bright scarf around his neck completed his new carefree image.<\/p>\n
It wouldn\u2019t be long before he was on his way to his new home filled with love from his new family. At least one can hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see tons of people here with skills,\u201d Meade said of the wonderful volunteers and staff he works with.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I don\u2019t see that many people with this much dedication,\u201d he said of Payton\u2019s 20 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople wash out,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a hard place to work. Not a lot of people can handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Payton keeps coming, he said, because she knows she\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n
But even Payton realizes she can\u2019t do it forever, and she hopes that someone with dog grooming experience shows up one day to team up with her and spread the benefits to a few more deserving dogs.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a 20-year legacy that\u2019s worth continuing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For 20 years, professional dog groomer Joan Payton has volunteered her time to care for dogs \u2014 hundreds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-429795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}