Clinical Grooming Education for Professionals Working With Cats
TANDEM Cat® is a trauma-informed, clinically grounded grooming system developed through real-world practice at Cats in the City. It was built for the cats traditional methods often fail: medically complex, behaviorally sensitive, aging, matted, shutdown, or commonly referred elsewhere for sedation.
Tandem Groomers is where the method is taught. Through certification, books, structured training, and onsite clinical immersion, professionals can learn the same system used in a high-volume feline-only practice.
A System, Not a Seminar
- Structured education in TANDEM Cat® clinical grooming
- Built from real cases, not theoretical models
- Designed for difficult, high-risk, and behaviorally complex cats
- Supported by books, coursework, workbook training, and live clinical observation
What TANDEM Cat® Means
TANDEM Cat® is a clinical grooming framework for working with cats safely, precisely, and with a deeper understanding of regulation, physiology, coat burden, and behavior.
It does not treat grooming as separate from health, mobility, stress, or recovery. It treats coat, claws, posture, shutdown, reactivity, hygiene, and intake as connected forms of clinical information.
TANDEM Touch™
Team-based handling that supports the feline body instead of overpowering it.
Somatic Care™
Reading posture, movement, burden, shutdown, and resistance as meaningful clinical signals.
Environmental Choreography™
Designing sound, sequence, transitions, and setup around feline thresholds.
Three Ways to Engage
TANDEM Cat® is not learned through one product alone. It is supported through structured education, published work, and exposure to the clinical environment where the system was developed.
Training
Structured certification for groomers and care professionals seeking a repeatable, trauma-informed feline grooming method.
Start Certification →Books & Reference Materials
A growing body of published work including TANDEM touch™ 10, the Cat Grooming Encyclopedia, and practice-based training materials.
View Books & Resources →Clinical Immersion
Limited onsite observation and training opportunities inside the Cats in the City clinical shops, where the method is practiced in real time.
Learn About Clinical Immersion →Developed in Real Practice
TANDEM Cat® was developed at Cats in the City, a feline-only clinical grooming and boarding practice in Portland, Oregon.
This is where the method was built, tested, and refined across thousands of real cases, including severe matting, coat burden, ingrown claws, medical fragility, shutdown, boarding-related anorexia, and cats commonly referred elsewhere for sedation.
Proof Pages That Define the Model
These pages do more than describe services. They define concepts, show clinical scale, and explain why the TANDEM Cat® model works.
Groomed Awake
A large-scale proof page documenting high-risk cats groomed without injectable sedation.
Read Groomed Awake →PFSES
The authority page defining Pre-Felt Somatic Entrapment Syndrome and hidden coat burden before visible matting.
Read PFSES →Transitional Stress Anorexia
The boarding authority page explaining how early food withdrawal is recognized and reversed before collapse.
Read TSA →Books That Support the Method
The TANDEM Cat® system is also supported by a growing body of published training materials. These books function as working references for professionals seeking structured, case-based feline grooming education.
TANDEM touch™ 10
An applied introduction to coordinated, trauma-informed feline handling.
View Publication →
The Cat Grooming Encyclopedia
A multi-volume reference series covering foundations, advanced technique, and professional practice.
View Publication →
Practice Workbook
Structured exercises and guided application for learners using the TANDEM Cat® system.
View Publication →What This System Has Made Possible
Learn the System in the Form That Fits
Certification $1,195
- Learn TANDEM Touch™ two-person handling
- Apply TANDEM Cat® clinical logic to difficult cases
- Build competency in trauma-informed feline grooming
- Develop a repeatable method for high-risk and behaviorally sensitive cats
Clinical Immersion
- Limited onsite observation at Cats in the City
- Exposure to real-world case flow and team coordination
- Designed for professionals seeking deeper practical understanding
- Application-based participation to protect the clinical environment
A System Built From Real Work
TANDEM Cat® was not built as a course first. It was built in practice.
Tandem Groomers exists to make that system teachable through certification, books, training materials, and carefully structured access to the clinical environment where the work began.
TANDEM Cat®, TANDEM®, TANDEM Touch™, Feline Form™, Felting Model™, and Matting Severity Scale™ are proprietary to TANDEM Cat®. © 2025 TANDEM Cat. All rights reserved.
Shawn and Dan are the inventors and developers of TANDEM Cat® Care, the founders of Cats in the City, and the founders of The TANDEM Cat® Institute. This method is a safer and more relaxed experience for your cat. When the TANDEM Cat® Grooming technique is used, two or more professional groomers attend to your cat, comfortably and naturally positioning them while the lead groomer focuses on the coat. Solo grooming involves only one groomer, which is unsafe and stressful.