Let there be light!

All of us groomers know how hard it is to see in a grooming room, especially on a white or black dog. It doesn't matter how much lighting we have in the room, there always seem to be shadows on the table, on at least the side we are standing on. 


Black dogs become nothing but a black hole and white dogs? They become a sea of white, like snow blindness.


Because we cannot see anything but a solid blob of color, there is no way we can see scissor or clipper lines, and as a result, the quality of our work can and WILL Suffer. We also end up with eye strain which can result in headaches and stress which make our lives much more stressful, and we are already stressed enough in many cases.


I know that lighting can be complicated and hard to install and in some cases nothing we do above our heads actually helps us see any better.


Artero used to have a grooming arm with lights built into it in their catalog (I don't have a new one to see if they still do) and I always thought that made sense. Close overhead lighting would make more sense than CEILING overhead lighting because there would be no  shadows falling onto the dog.


I have pondered t his and tried to work it out in my head for years as to how to duplicate this easily and not long ago, while looking for an overhead lighting system for my kitchen sink I found these under counter lights:

I thought about hanging them on the wall behind the tables or overhead near the existing lights but I could not make that work, so the arm was the next best solution. I had them for a month or so before I figured out how to attach them to my arm and one day, it hit me out of the clear blue sky that I could use double sided foam tape to attach them to the arm. Something that simple had been staring me right in the face for weeks and I had not seen it. When I realized it would work I went right to work installing.




The cords posed a small problem, but nothing I couldn't tackle with cable ties.

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I attached them firmly with the tape, then secured each one close to the lamp itself with a heavy duty cable tie, trimming the cable tie closely after it was placed. I made sure the cords were on top of the arm to get them out of the way of the dogs. 


I put a light (as pictured above) about 4-6 inches above the table as well to light the feet and underline of the dogs. I know, I know, you are saying "WAIT! I need to adjust my arm!" but we use Groomer's Helper Loop adjusters, so we never have to move our arms up or down. Problem solved. The cords, when secured correctly do not interfere with the use of the Groomer's Helper clamp either. (as seen in the photos below)

To show you how much lighting makes a difference I took some photos without my flash with the lights on and off. The photos on the right are WITH the lights, the ones on the left WITHOUT the lights. 
Notice the color differences? Isn't that crazy?!?!?!?!
The last photo was taken at the far end of the table with half the dog lit up and the other half in shadow. Neat contrast don't you think?

All in all it took my about 10 minutes (at the most) to install these lights on each arm. They could be installed on an overhead full table arm or LIPS system as well, it will just take 6 not three to cover the arm.

You can find the lights I used by following this link: LIGHTS. This set has a dimmer switch which I opted not to install because a slight bump would turn it up or down or even off, so instead I made a decision to separate the set and light two tables.. You can get the kit without the dimmer switch here at this link 3 LIght Set. 2 lights on the arm overhead and one at the feet is what you need and a 3 light set will be sufficient for one table. Plug into a power strip or an extension cord and "Let there be light!".