Leashed Diploma Pathways

This page covers the six Leashed diploma pathways: the business and personal subjects every pathway shares, each pathway's terms, hours, safety gates, and capstone, and how the pathways build on one another.

The shared subjects

Every pathway runs the same Business & Personal Mastery subjects alongside its technical blocks: Life Skills & Health, Personal Readiness, Business Operations, Marketing, Technology, Finance, and Legal. The purpose is that you graduate with the foundation to run a compliant, profitable practice, not only the craft skill. The weekly schedule is Monday to Friday, 08:00–15:30: technical lab in the morning, business and personal modules at midday, review and practicum in the afternoon, with checkpoints on Wednesday and capstone and rubric work on Friday.

Professional Dog Groomer: IPDG (1,248 hours, 44 weeks)

Four terms: Foundation: dog life stages, breeds, coat types, salon safety (311 hours); Core Skill: bathing, drying, and preparation technique (311 hours); Advanced Skill: breed-standard cuts and scissoring (346 hours); and Capstone: live salon floor and business launch (280 hours).

Two safety gates apply: IPDG-103 must be signed off before any live-animal work in Term 1, and IPDG-302 before advanced live-animal work in Term 3. Every live-client dog is assessed against the Competency Rubric, and safety-critical rows are pass or fail. See Assessments and Rubric.

The capstone, GRM-BIZ, requires

1. A complete grooming business plan presented to an instructor panel: service menu, pricing, marketing, and a 12-month financial projection.
2. A signed practicum log showing live-client hours and breed variety.
3. A demonstration groom.

The curriculum's worked example uses 8 dogs a week at a $65 average ticket and about $650 a week in costs, and the panel tests whether your figures hold up.

Professional Dog Trainer: PDT (1,112 hours, 39 weeks)

Term 1 covers foundations: dog history, the ten key AKC breeds, equipment, vaccination protocols, and ADA service-animal guidelines (256 hours). Term 2 covers core craft: marker training, shaping, capturing, and reading body language (266 hours). Term 3 covers the distinction between training problems, solved with repetition, and behavior problems, solved with behavior-modification plans: including leash reactivity, resource guarding, and separation anxiety (336 hours). Term 4 is the TRN-BIZ capstone (254 hours): your training business plan, class structure, pricing, insurance and liability waivers, and a continuing-education plan for the next two years, which is a required deliverable. See Continuing Education.

The safety gate is PDT-201, required before live-animal work. Corrections in this pathway are minimal and fair: a withheld reward or a reset, never fear or pain.

Animal Care Assistant: ACA (988 hours, 35 weeks)

This pathway covers puppies and developmental stages, breeds, workplace safety, handling, bathing, nail trims, ear cleaning, kennel operations, intake and checkout, vaccination record-keeping, medication administration, and customer service. Term 4 has no technical module; it is business readiness and the ACA-BIZ capstone: a workforce-readiness portfolio: resume, signed practicum log, customer-service philosophy, and career plan: presented to a panel.

ACA technical modules credit toward IPDG-101–204, and all business modules transfer, so this pathway is the first step on the bather-to-owner path: bather, then IPDG Term 3, then lead groomer, then your own salon.

Professional Pet Sitter: PPS (56 hours, 2 weeks)

This pathway covers client selection, multi-species care (dogs, cats, small mammals, birds, and reptiles), safe handling, sanitation, and CPR and first aid, plus scheduling, invoicing, insurance, bonding, and pricing models. A central lesson is the intake interview: the professional choice is sometimes to decline a job, or to offer a management plan or a referral instead: for example, for a dog whose separation anxiety has destroyed a door frame.

Safety gates PPS-104 and PPS-105 are required before live-animal work. The capstone, PPS-BIZ, is a complete sitting-business launch in miniature: service menu, pricing, intake and contract templates, insurance plan, and marketing strategy. PPS builds into ACA, IPDG, PDT, or PPC.

Professional Cat Groomer: CAT (58 hours, 2 weeks)

Cats are not small dogs, and this pathway is built on that fact. It covers breed and coat-type recognition, temperament reading (relaxed, tense, overstimulated, fearful), and a "less is more" approach: a cat groom may be shorter than a dog groom, and pushing past a cat's tolerance is dangerous and unprofessional. Technique covers cat-safe bathing: warm water, a calm firm hold, no high-velocity dryer: short-coat and long-coat work, and the lion cut for matted longhairs. The curriculum prices cat grooming above dog grooming in its example ($85 against $65), because few groomers offer it, and teaches when to refer a cat to a veterinarian for sedation grooming instead.

The safety gate is CAT-102. The capstone, CAT-BIZ, requires a pricing model, a client-screening protocol, safety procedures, veterinarian-referral criteria, and a marketing plan. CAT builds into IPDG or PPC.

Professional Pet Care & Business Ownership: PPC (1,500 hours, 52 weeks)

PPC is the final credential in this set. It covers all IPDG, PDT, PPS, and CAT technical objectives, a multi-service practicum across the salon floor, the training floor, and sitting visits, and the business subjects at the deepest level: funding (loans, investors, bootstrapping), staffing (hiring, compensation, retention), legal protection (LLC structure, employment law), and scaling (a second location, franchising). Its central lesson is that a multi-service owner cannot be the best groomer, trainer, and sitter at once; the owner builds systems, delegates, and holds quality standards.

Safety gates apply at every level: PPC-105, 201, 306, 403, 405, and 410. The capstone, PPC-BIZ, requires a complete enterprise plan, a 3-year financial projection, a funding strategy, a staffing plan, standard operating procedures, a legal and insurance framework, and a multi-service practicum log, defended before a panel.

How the pathways build on one another

• ACA builds into IPDG.
• PPS builds into ACA, IPDG, PDT, or PPC.
• CAT builds into IPDG or PPC.
• PPC is the final credential and does not build into another pathway.

You may start with a two-week certificate and build toward the 52-week diploma, with credit transferring along the way. Each credential is complete on its own; see Certifications and Credentials.