Team Taiwan on Wednesday won the Team Champion award at the Federation Cynologique Internationale (FCI) World Grooming Competition held in the Philippines. It is their second team grooming title in recent months.
The team was organized by the Kennel Club of Taiwan (KCT), an organization long dedicated to pet grooming education in Taiwan, Ministry of Agriculture Department of Animal Welfare Deputy Director Chen Chung-hsing (陳中興) said yesterday.
It competed with four other teams from South Korea, Philippines, Malaysia and Spain, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Agriculture
Aside from the team championship, Team Taiwan member Yu Ya-pei (余亞蓓) won the “poodles” category, while Ho Shu-hui (何淑慧) won the “other pedigree dogs trimming” category with a bichon frise.
The KCT yesterday said the Team Champion award was the second win in a row following the Best Grooming Team award won at a grooming competition held in Malaysia last year.
The KCT has been competing on behalf of Taiwan since the first FCI grooming competition was organized and held in Kaohsiung in 2023, it said.
It holds about three to four tryouts a year to select entrants, with about 10 judges invited from home and abroad to evaluate groomers’ performance, the KCT said.
Groomers who score the most accumulated points in the tryouts can take part in the national team in competitions the following year, it said.
Recent tryouts usually have about 20 to 30 participants, the KCT said, adding the tryouts are open to all people interested in competing with other pet groomers.
The next tryout is to be held at New Taipei City’s Banshu Gymnasium on April 18, when the ministry would present awards, it said.
The KCT issues pet groomer certifications and has signed memorandums of understanding with several vocational high schools to collaborate on training groomers, he said.
As a crucial part of the pet care industry in Taiwan, pet grooming has become a profession that requires practitioners to obtain a Level C certificate, Chen said.
The ministry would continue to bolster the development of pet grooming and animal welfare to help the industry, he said.
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