Pet project turned into 40 years of business
Owner of Debbie’s Pet Grooming closing store, says it’s time for a change after 40 years in operation
WOONSOCKET – After 40 years of operating Debbie’s Complete Pet Grooming at 164 Front St., Debbie Cote will be closing the business at the end of April.
“If it wasn’t for the fact that I need a change, I think I’d still be doing this, but I need a change,” said Cote, 61.
Her desire for a change is twofold: She wants to spend more time with her three children, and she wants to pursue another passion.
Her husband, Jim Cote, noted that in their 17 years of marriage, they have fostered 19 children and adopted three of them. They have two 12year-old boys and a 14-yearold girl.
Another factor in her decision to close the business was the desire to follow another passion: crafts. Debbie and Jim Cote opened Butterfly Unique Handmade Gifts & Crafts in Bellingham in December, and the shop will have its grand opening in May.
Debbie has been working at both the grooming shop and the craft store, making for quite a busy schedule. One of the things she is looking forward to with the closing of Debbie’s Complete Pet Grooming is the ability to sleep in a bit.
She is often at her shop at 6 a.m., whereas the craft store’s hours are from noon to 7 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.
In the 1970s, Cote worked for another groomer and then as a vet technician. She opened Debbie’s Complete Pet Grooming in 1977, with the financial help of her mother, a single mother who couldn’t afford to send her daughter to college after high school but wanted to be proactive about her future.
She “gave me $2,000 to start, and 40 years [later], I think I spent her $2,000 quite well,” Cote said. She added, “I’ve always loved animals, and this is my way of having as many as I want, and not own them.”
But she did end up owning some of these pets. The clients with whom she became close over the years sometimes left her animals in their wills, including a prairie dog and a rabbit.
From being in the industry, Cote started to show dogs and judge cats, the latter through the Cat Fanciers Federation.
The imminent closure of Debbie’s Complete Pet Grooming has left some customers panicking, Cote said.
“I’m the only one that has ever handled them, and some of these dogs, nobody can touch them but me,” she said.
But rest assured: Cote said her friend Donna Demers is planning to open a pet grooming shop, and that she will be working with Demers on Mondays.
Along with wanting to spend more time with her children and focus on the crafting venture, the timing for the decision to close the grooming business came in part from a visit to a psychic.
Cote said she doesn’t usu- ally believe in psychics, but this one told her that her late mother would send her a sign through butterflies.
Soon, it seemed like she was seeing butterflies everywhere. Her husband found a book of butterflies while looking through an old box, and Debbie saw a butterfly in October, which struck her as an unusual time of year to see a butterfly in New England.
This played into the name of the new gift and craft store, and after getting $2,000 from her mother 40 years ago for Debbie’s Complete Pet Grooming, it seems Cote has come full circle.
Gesturing around the pet shop, she said, “This she gave me; I’m giving the other store to her in her memory.”