Berlin pet groomer dedicated to animal rescue, education

Patti Adams is known throughout the Eastern Shore and beyond as "the dog lady."

"I could be in Walmart knocking on watermelon. 'Hey, dog lady. Hey, aren't you the dog lady?' "she said.

Though they might not know her by name, many recognize Adams by face and reputation and are quick to reach out to her when they hear of or see an animal being mistreated.

There's a picture on the front counter of Adams's shop Ruff Cuts Pet Salon in Berlin of a small, light brown Pomeranian whose coat is stringy and tangled with clumps of solidified feces.

Beneath the photo, the words "Never Forget" are written in bright red ink.

The dog's name is Jake, and the image is a before shot of him taken shortly after he was rescued from a Wicomico County puppy mill in Eden in 2016 along with more than 300 other dogs.

Robert and Susan Murphy, the puppy mill owners, were each indicted in January on 96 animal cruelty charges. Robert has been found incompetent to stand trial, but Susan is scheduled to appear in front of a jury in October.

"The only way to get rid of that is to get rid of it. You can't wash that off," Adams said of the condition of many of the Pomeranians' fur.

Her own Pomeranian, Karma, also a rescue, sits in Adams's lap as she remembers the first time she met Jake, back when he didn't have a single hair on his body or tooth in his mouth.

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Jake's owner, Ida Kaleinicke, is a friend of Adams's, and the pair have known each other for nearly three decades. They met when Adams offered to take care of Kaleinicke's pony while she was out of town.

Kaleinicke is one of the many friends Adams has made because of her love for animals, which she said over the last 25 to 30 years has motivated her to rescue an estimated 500 animals.

"I'm so lucky. All of my friends, my best and closest friends, it's through their dogs that I make friends that I trust and love," she said.

Since the dogs were rescued from the puppy mill a little over a year ago, Adams has worked with about 30 of them, helping groom and care for them as their new owners nurture them back to health.

Adams doesn't keep every animal she saves, but they all have a story.

"There's always a choice"

One of her most recent rescues, a Collie named Jojo Dancer, weighed about 12 to 14 pounds when they picked her up a month and a half ago. She had been kept among mulch, which was filled with manure, bugs and old, dead wood.

Next to poor nutrition, Adams said it's some of the worst conditions a dog can be kept in. Jojo Dancer ultimately lost the tip of one of her ears because it had been eaten away at by bugs.

"This is a very scary world to them," Adams said. "People don't understand that dogs become comfortable with their environment, no matter how cruel, how bad, how filthy, how scary, how small it is."

In just a short time, she said Jojo Dancer has come a long way, weighing in now at a healthy 35 pounds.

Between Adams and her mother, Pat Hardy, they've got a plethora of anecdotes, some of them comical, but many of them heartbreaking.

Her mother can tell you about the time they picked up a Doberman in Pennsylvania that had been chained up near a set of railroad tracks in the snow. She said they visited the dog three separate times before they finally took it in the middle of the night because they had yet to see anyone around to care for it.

Adams remembers the "maggot-infested" dog she picked up that had been left tied up on a deck without food or water. Another had been shot in the head at just five months old, and one had been tied up in a goat shed for three months before she came for it.

The pair don't care how far they have to go. They've driven hours just simply to check on dogs.  

"I think she was born that way," Hardy said of her daughter.

But Adams said finding the nerve to confront people who are mistreating their pets came from witnessing animal abuse first-hand, and her efforts aren't exclusive to dogs.

She once rescued a horse whose owner had allowed its halter to grow into its nose, and, of course, there's Mary Jane, the Ruff Cuts feline mascot.

She usually finds out about the animals because she'll get a call from someone who suspects they're being abused and neglected. But sometimes she just spots them as she's driving around.

"I don't steal the dogs. I give people a choice. There's always a choice," she said. "Usually, I always take the dog. The other choice isn't so great, and you didn't care about the dog obviously anyway so why don't you let me do that for you."

Adams said she's not afraid to go into neighborhoods that people typically avoid unless they're involved in some sort of illegal activity, and people often know when she's coming through because her reputation precedes her.

Her mission is not only to remove animals from abusive environments, but also to educate people, which she considers one of the keys to life.

"Don't you care for that dog? If you care for that dog, that dog needs just as much care as that kid right there," she said. "I will help them learn about caring for the dog. It's come a long way in the past 20 years, a very long way."

A master groomer

Adams has also been in the business of grooming pets for 25 years and has been at her storefront in Berlin for the last 10.

She's already achieved master status in her craft, but if it were possible, she said she would try to take her certification even further. Every day she makes an effort to learn something new.

Adams's friends agree she's one of the first people they call when their pets are in distress, even before they try a veterinarian. She's worked with animals for several years, and usually sees pets more often than their veterinarian.

"You can take an animal to a vet, and whatever you tell them to do, they do. Patti knows them from head to toe," Hardy said. "She knows every bump, every freckle, everything. She can tell when they bring an animal in if they feed it Ol' Roy or one of the really cheap dog foods." 

Adams used to show dogs and would watch groomers work on poodles, noticing how rough they were with the dogs even when they were holding still. She said she wanted to learn the trade and find a way to do it differently.

Cutting hair is the easy part, she said. It's everything that goes along with grooming that makes it a difficult trade.

For example, when a dog tries to bite, Adams said some groomers are quick to try to put a muzzle on it. But Adams believes it's important to understand that behavior and try to find a way to change it.

"Why's it trying to bite you? Because it's afraid. It's afraid," she said. "Dogs aren't vicious. People are."