Rika Otsuka's Puppy Love: Canine Clients Respond to Japanese and English

Rika Otsuka keeps up a constant stream of chatter, speaking to her clients in English and Japanese, and ducking out of the way when they decide to shake after getting hosed down.

As she works on a little fox terrier she’s been grooming for nearly eight years—its owner having followed her from a previous shop—she says the dog is much more calm and relaxed with her now than when he was a puppy.

“This guy was so bad. He wanted to bite,” she says. “When the customer called, I tell him, ‘Must muzzle!’ ”

Now they’re old friends, and the trusting terrier even obliges as she brushes his teeth.

It’s no secret to Otsuka why she gets along so well with dogs.

“I think a long, long time ago before I was born I was a dog,” she says, before bursting into a long laugh.

Otsuka, 52, a pet stylist at Star Dogs Professional Dog Grooming in La Mesa, has been working with dogs much of her life.

As a high school girl growing up near Tokyo, she got her first part-time job as a groomer. When she moved to the United States about 14 years ago, she enhanced her experience by going to a grooming school in El Cajon to learn what she calls “the American style.”

Since then, she’s worked at several shops around San Diego, including two others in La Mesa before coming to Star Dogs almost four years ago.

When she first came to America, she looked for a job in computer programming—the role she had in Japan for close to 13 years—but says her English skills weren’t up to par.

That hasn’t stopped her, though.

“I think about it, but I’m not good in English. I’m still bad, but 10 years ago, more bad,” she says, stopping to laugh again. “But I think about it, and dogs don’t need English. So I thought, ‘I’ll be a dog groomer.’ ”

While her English may not be good enough to be a stand-up comic, her sense of humor and can-do attitude has earned her steady employment and a loyal clientele.

Plus, she says, all that computer programming experience hasn’t gone to waste.

“It’s the same thing. I program the dog,” she says, laughing.

When she’s asked to spell her last name, she hands a visitor her business card, while spelling it out loud: “O-t-s-u-k-a.”

“Same like the baseball player,” she says, referring to former Padres reliever Aki Otsuka. “But he’s not my husband, OK?” Which, of course, prompts Otsuka to laugh.

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