It is with great sadness that I write this. Wednesday morning we lost Jacquelyn Taylor to her quiet fight with stage 4 cancer. The news that she was gravely ill was a total shock to me, and actually to all that knew her. I will miss her immensely, we brainstormed often on dog training, poodles, horses, and life in general. I first met her when she was judging USDAA agility in the area, that is when we had 4 trials a YEAR in the area, and had to expand our trialing to an 8 hour radius to add an additional one or 2 trials. The ‘big boys’ and the ‘newbies’ alike new each other, Agility was in its infancy then and we all were in it to have fun with our dogs, and did. I was running Kodiac my standard Poodle and my Lab Tugboat at the time, and she fell in love with my ‘opinionated’ poodle. We, met again at Toledo Time Busters combination USDAA, NADAC trial, one of the first NADAC trials actually, she was again judging, both formats, and she remembered us, I was impressed! Little did I know she followed our progress in the sport with great interest, and decided she might have to have one, as she had not seen a poodle with that much drive, ever. A couple of years later I ran into her again competing in the Puparoini Tournament for Agility in Chicago, I was still running Kodi, and had added his grandson George as a youngster…who was going to be bred to Karen Slack’s Zelda, a pup from Joyce Carelli who was an awesome dog in her own right, when she came in season. Jackie watched all 3 poodles run with a big smile on her face, decided and then and there, to get on Zelda’s puppy list. The litter was born and ready to go the first weekend in June, when Jackie was going to judge the USDAA trial in Minnesota. Linda Weresch and I went to run our dogs at the trial, with a black pup in tow…Jackie had wanted a brown, but the brown boy in that litter was not what she needed, I talked her into the black boy…when he popped out of that crate in the car (which he SCREAMED in all 4+ hours on the way up) it was love at first site for both of them. I will never forget her comment, no good dog is a bad color, and she was right. She had her first Standard Poodle, Charlie. She hooked up a year or so later with Grace Blair on her cross country trek rallying the troops of poodle people into the field, and as the saying goes, that was all she wrote. She took that black ball of fluff, all the way to Master Hunter, HRCH, UH, by herself, running the Master National and 3 Grands along the way. She also put a UD, MX bunch of USDAA agility titles on Charlie, and was showing him in breed at the same time. Charlie was the first Poodle, and one of only a few dual HRCH/CH dogs, his son Pasa is one as well, who she also trained, showed and trialed. Jackie then trained and trialed 4 more standards (all out of our ‘family’ of opinionated Standards) to AKC/UKC field and conformation titles and had number 5 and 6 in training…. working those dogs also in agility and obedience naturally. I got a call from her a couple of years ago, with her listening to me grumbling about Poodles not being able to prove themselves in the upland field in the Spaniel Tests, at least the Curlies had an upland WC. She said then let’s do it, I said do you think we can, she said you’ll never know unless we try. So we did, and put together the PCA Upland Certificate Series, that has been very well received and hopefully will get our toes in the door for our Poodles to run in the Spaniel tests, which was our original goal. Her tenacity for this project was unrelenting. She had focus, and determination in anything I knew her to do. This was no exception, and I will carry on with this mission in her honor that is for sure! She taught me just because someone says you ‘can’t’, you not only can, but you will…for that I am forever grateful. I will miss you my friend, more than you will know. I would say Rest in Peace, but I know you will have many projects that you will still be working on behind the scenes, there is no rest for the wicked, and you are wicked, wicked good! See you later
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:28:52 +0000
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