People of Atwater Village: Ada Zhang

My first name is Ada, A D A. And last name Zhang. I'm from China. Well because I grew up with all these animals, in China we have a big open yard, where we have monkeys and dogs and pigs, like a little farm. So I grew up with all these animals, and since I love dogs so much, I decided to work with dogs, so I became a groomer. When I first come in this store, I fell in love with all the decoration in the store, the owner used to own this store, she's really nice, and then she helped me with all my questions about dogs. I told her, I'm looking for a job as a groomer, and then she said we're looking for a groomer, so that's how I found a job.

After three years she decided to retire and she didn't want to sell the store to a stranger because she wanted us to keep the store going and help the neighbors clean their dogs. So she decided to sell [the store to] the employees. And then me and the other employee — he used to work for her for five years — bought the store.

People here are really nice. One time my mom come visit me and she lost her little puppy dog, the dog ran away. And then people were really concerned with what happened because we ran to the neighbors and the neighbors saw us running, and the neighbor asked us 'what's wrong, can I help you?' I felt so touched.