Pampered Pets

Pip sits outside her house, seemingly waiting for her ride to the doggy spa to arrive. The vehicle is hard to miss.

The so-called “critter shuttle,” a yellow Volvo wagon decorated with fuchsia paw prints, attracts the attention of dogs and owners throughout the city.

Victoria Rutten, owner of Big Rock Canyon Grooming, provides free shuttle service for canines who are headed to her pet spa in the Santa Susana Mountains. That’s where the 46-year-old mother of two does what she loves best--grooming dogs and taking care of her family.

Rutten, who has worked as a groomer for 22 years, started her at-home business in Box Canyon eight years ago, so she could work while being near her family and keep her children, Ashland, now 14, and Sarah, now 11, out of day care.

For a pair of Irish setters, Pip and Amber, the trek up the winding road to Rutten’s home includes passing Corriganville, where Roy Rogers and Gene Autry once filmed western movies. The 10-minute drive is worth the wait, because once the canines arrive, they get a pampering beauty treatment worthy of a human.

In a converted garage with a log-cabin facade, white ruffled curtains and tile floors, the place looks more like a hair salon than a dog groomer’s work area.

More people from all income levels are taking their dogs to groomers, Rutten said, adding that pet owners are doing things for their pets that they would also do for themselves.

“And they are using people terms,” said the veteran groomer, who wants to build a second story on the garage to create a doggy bed-and-breakfast for pets staying overnight.

“ ‘Kennel’ sounds dirty and like dogs,” she said, hoisting the 60-pound Pip into a tub made by her husband, Peter, and placing a “bathing noose” around the animal’s neck to keep her from jumping out.

For the past year, Anka Brazzell of Simi Valley has visited Rutten’s shop with Laddie, her 2-year-old Pomeranian, for a one-on-one treatment every two weeks.

“You go into her shop and you don’t hear 50 dogs barking and going nuts,” Brazzell said. “It’s the cleanest. [A] spotless place, you can eat off her floor.”

Sometimes customers do indeed eat off the floor, or sometimes out of Rutten’s hand, when sampling her homemade doggy biscuits.

“When I’m baking them, the neighbors’ dogs come and sit on the porch,” she said. “My husband thinks they stink, because they have beef and garlic in them.”

Rutten offers regular grooming services--shampooing, conditioning, haircuts, and pooch-style manicures. On occasion, she has helped ensure a pet’s overall health by detecting tumors or parasites.

As Rutten fluff-dried Pip’s heavy fur, she said the process would take about 20 minutes with a high-powered, hand-held dryer. More common, though, is for groomers to place wet dogs in a cage for a few hours with old-style blowers, which look like large fans, pointed at them.

“I’ve had my day in busy shops with 13 or 20 dogs,” said Rutten, whose family owns three mongrels. “I’m too old for that. Now my limit is about five dogs.

“I enjoy spending time with them, not working as if it’s an assembly line. I try to do the stuff I couldn’t do when I was so busy. I get to know my customers.”

Rutten has learned her clientele so well that she remembers an animal’s birthday with presents--rawhide for the hounds and discounts for the owners.

Rutten’s prices of $30 to $60 for a grooming are slightly higher than what pet-store chains charge for grooming services.

Mary Pierce, a groomer at the Petco in Simi Valley said that she too gives dogs in her care lots of attention. Besides, owners have the benefit of shopping for needed pet supplies in an air-conditioned building while they wait.

But Rutten said service is what distinguishes her business. For example, she travels to Orange County to groom a small pack of aging dogs that she has kept tidy since they were puppies.

“I promised to make the trip until the dogs passed away or until I can’t do it any longer,” she said. “I do it out of kindness, I don’t do it as a monetary thing.”

Rutten got her start in critter care as a teenager, volunteering for an animal shelter in her hometown of Green Bay, Wis. In 1977, she moved to California and the next spring, she began training at the International School of Dog Training in Anaheim. After eight years of operating her own grooming business, Rutten began to work part time as she started her family. She then worked for more than five years at an animal-care clinic in Fullerton.

Hoping to raise their children in a safer and more rural atmosphere, the Ruttens decided to relocate to the mountains near Chatsworth two years ago.

Now, Rutten said, she’s got her dream job--one that allows her to work about four hours a day and gives her the flexibility to set her schedule around her children’s school day. Most of her grooming jobs are done while her children are in class.

But Rutten said she recalled times when work was a nightmare, adding that the job can be stressful and hard on the back. And then there are the negligent pet owners who forget their dogs, forcing her to wait at her shop until late in the evening.

Although she has never been bitten--an unusual bit of good fortune in her business--Rutten said she is, however, concerned about developing arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome from years of repetitive clipping.