After two earlier careers failed to satisfy, Suzanne Barr thinks she's finally barking up the right tree.

In 2006, Barr opened the PawPurri For Pets Boutique, Daycare & Grooming Salon at 1316 Folly Road. The shop offers dog trimming, grooming and bathing services and doggie day care. Dog food, care manuals, clothing, leashes, collars and other canine accessories are for sale, too.

Dogs rule at PawPurri, where cats need not apply." A cat wouldn't want to be here. It's a dog town," Barr said with her ever-present smile.

Dogs occasionally barked behind Barr as she spoke, but that's music to her ears. "We talk to them and sing to them," she said of her staff's affection for dogs in its care.

"They treat the dogs like their babies," and the dogs, she added, "like to talk to everybody that comes in."

Now in her early 40s, Barr recalled how her love of animals led her away from two previous professions, including one that made her a world traveler based on the West Coast, to make South Carolina her home and PawPurri her career. She said she spent her early life "zig-zagging" between the East and West coasts, but "I'm done with that. This is where I am staying."

Barr was born in San Francisco but raised in Virginia. While earning a a business degree at Virginia Commonwealth University, she worked for a radio station and went into advertising after graduation. Five years later, she started her own advertising/public relations agency. After nine years, she needed a break from it and moved to near Malibu Beach, Calif., to be close to her brother.

"I was trying to decide what I wanted to do for the next 20 years of my life," she remembered.

She concluded she needed to work with dogs, and her positive impressions from an earlier stop in the S.C. Lowcountry led her to decide that was where she wanted to live and work.

Barr said what she loves about her shop are "wet noses and sweet waggly tails, unconditional love. They don't talk back to you, and you don't have to negotiate a business deal with them."

Perhaps the only provider of doggie day care on James Island, PawPurri hosts three to seven dogs each day. They usually play well together in the fenced backyard behind the shop. The dogs have been coming to PawPurri for years, "and they all know each other and are happy all day," she said.

On the shop's small staff are Linda Olsen, a groomer with 30 years of experience, and Anna Lisa Hart, a bather who's glad that she also can bring her dog, Cadee, to work. PawPurri accepts new customers, but appointments are necessary.

A supporter of animal rescue and adoption services, PawPurri will host a meet and greet for the Shih Tzus and Furbabies Rescue 11 a.m.-1 p.m. May 9. "Cute babies will be up for adoption," Barr said.

Call 795-5779.

Reach Edward C. Fennell at 937-5560 or efennell@postandcourier.com.

Post and Courier
Rescued dog 'Graces' family

Always having owned big male Labrador retrievers (one that I rescued as a young abused dog lived to be 14), I was not prepared for this little delightful baby girl, whom I took on as a "foster child" from the JASPCA, now the Charleston Animal Society, in August 2006.

That lasted about an hour, since I knew she was too sweet to give to someone else, so I had to wait three more days until she was allowed to stay at her new home for good.

When I asked Kay Hyman from the CAS to help me find a female "model" for my new dog boutique, she called me a couple days later to inform me that this little puppy was found on the side of the road.

I raced up to the shelter (and) took this tiny little fluffy black-and-gold puppy, less than 5 pounds, straight back to the doggy bathtub and had to give her a flea bath, shampoo and outfit to wear. I then took her home to meet her big brothers, Sam and Kolby, the Labs, and a cat, Zorro Bleu.

Going through girl names, from Chloe to Zoe, to Dixie to many others, I realized she was a princess, so her name had to be Grace (Gracie Anne to be exact).

Gracie plays with her friends every day at my day care, does little tricks for the clientele and wears the cutest outfits to show people how cute their dog can look. She even plays with the big dogs at the James Island dog park.

We frequently go to the beach to listen to music at Blu, the Holiday Inn beach restaurant (and) on the boat with air blowing hair everywhere. They all go to restaurants with us on James Island.

We lost Sam recently to heart problems at the age of 12, so now it is Gracie, Kolby and Zorro Bleu at home, but there is always a full house for her to play with at "work."

One of these days we will be ready to get another rescue dog, but right now, Gracie is the only princess I have.

Suzanne Barr

PawPurri For Pets Boutique, Day Care & Grooming Salon

James Island