Holly was a cocker spaniel with dry skin, keratinized patches across her body, and hair loss she'd carried for more than t...
Holly was a cocker spaniel with dry skin, keratinized patches across her body, and hair loss she'd carried for more than t...
Most grooming education stops at technique. Michelle Knowles teaches the part that comes after — reading skin, working with frightened and compromised animals, and knowing where a groomer's judgment ends and a veterinarian's begins.
Thirty years on the table, across salons, kennels, zoos, and veterinary hospitals, with advanced dermatological training from Tuscany. She speaks at trade shows, independent schools, salons, and veterinary practices, and she teaches the way she works: plainly, with the reasoning showing, and with room for the audience to argue.
Sessions run from a 45-minute keynote to a full-day hands-on intensive, and are built for the specific room — a floor of two thousand and a salon team of six need different things.
Hosting Michelle Knowles at the Groomer’s Speakeasy Institute gave our audience far more than product knowledge. Michelle helped groomers understand how follicle health, skin and coat condition, behavior, stress, aging, allergies and product choices are all connected. Attendees left with a more thoughtful way to assess each dog, make intentional choices, and recognize when to intervene, and when to step back. Michelle has a gift for making advanced science understandable, practical and immediately useful behind the grooming table. Her teaching gave our audience greater confidence and a deeper understanding of their role as whole-animal care professionals.
Sean and Alaina Leblanc
Within Normal Limits — why a dog can pass a clinical exam and still not be well, and what the person who sees that skin every six weeks can do about it
Formats: keynote (45–60 min) · workshop (2–3 hrs) · hands-on intensive (full day) · salon team training (on-site) Contact for a complete list
Michelle Knowles, MPAe, ICMG, CCE, is a Certified Master Groomer, Master Pet Aesthetician, and certified clinical herbalist with thirty years in professional pet care. She trained in Tuscany in advanced dermatological care and hand stripping, teaches advanced aesthetics at the Meditative Groomer Academy, and founded All Things Paw, where she publishes open standards for a profession that has none.
Most pet products start with a scent, a foam profile, and a shelf that needs filling. The dermatology gets fitted around them afterward — which is how the market ends up crowded with things that smell wonderful and change nothing.
Michelle Knowles works the other direction. Thirty years of hands-on dermatological practice, formal training in clinical herbalism, and advanced skin and coat education, applied to two kinds of problem: what goes in the bottle, and what a specific dog actually needs.