Me and Max home after a 4-H show
1/14/12 - Note: This page is currently biography style, with latest news at the bottom. Eventually I'll get around to re-doing the whole website to be more user-friendly, but for now
you'll just have to deal with it.
I love Poodles, especially of the Standard variety. I raised my first Standard in 2000 as an assistance dog for NEADS and Finlay graduated in Fall '01 as a Hearing Dog. Usually puppy-raised dogs are too calm for hearing work, but Finlay was a very high-strung dog who came from a pet breeder who had donated him for the program. When I was looking for a puppy of my own I was careful to find a laid-back pup and Max was very easy in comparisson. I got Max at the end of July '01 at 8 weeks. I started grooming when I got Max - he has never been to a 'pro' groomer, though I'm not that bad. I took a couple of classes at a local college which teaches grooming, but I also read many books and did an apprenticeship at a grooming shop the summer I turned 15. In addition, I have attended a local grooming competition a few times as a spectator and I have gone to many workshops/seminars. I even have a small home-based grooming business and I am the official groomer of NEADS dogs. With Finlay, I went to a Companion Dog obedience class, monthly meetings for puppy-raisers, and of course lot's of stores and restaurants. When I got Max it was hard to leave him at home since I was used to taking my dog with me, but he enjoys outdoor concerts and such. I took Max to a puppy class, then joined 4-H where we have had on-going weekly classes for a few years now focusing on Novice obedience, Showmanship and Rally-O - and we're finally getting into some Open! Since I got Charlie, I've alternated which dog I bring depending on what we are working on that week. Last August ('06) I moved from MA to CA for 'real' college. I attended the Assistance Dog Institute (www.assistancedog.org) in Santa Rosa for 8 months, earning most of my AS in Assistance Dog Education (I still have a few general education courses left). After a few months in the dorm, I got an apartment off-campus and flew Charlie out to me, but unfortunately Max had to stay home with my family. While I was gone, Max developed cancer and I barely made it home in time to say good-bye, just one month before graduation when I'd have been home to stay. Just before graduation, I received a call from back in MA - a small boarding and grooming facility had just closed down due to the owner's health, and was available for another business to open! Not only is it located in my favorite part of the state, only 1 hr from where my family lives, but the property itself is amazing! Just over 6 acres of fields, woods, and a pond, with a nice kennel building with ample space, large outdoor runs/fenced play-yard, stable and horse corral (soon to be used for dog agility), pasture for training and possible horses in the future, and a big house. The property needs a lot of attention before a business can be operated from it, but it's coming along very well... I hope to open in September '07! To learn more about the business, go to www.WowTakeABow.com - there will be a grand opening that anyone is welcome to come to. Once Wow Take A Bow is operating smoothly, I will be putting more time into my service dog organization, American Poodles At Work. This is a small program that breeds, raises, trains, and places Standard Poodles as service and social/therapy dogs, using many of the methods that I learned in California. APAW's goal is to shorten the waiting list for a service dog, particularly for people who are looking for a Poodle (due to allergies or personal preferrence). The dogs will also recieve a higher level of training than what generally comes 'standard' - these advanced skills are ones that I have heard many candidates request or praise when a dog has been taught. 1/14/12 -- About time for an update here... Wow Take A Bow officially opened for business in February 2008! It was a great adventure, and considering the economy WTAB was able to sustain and build faster than I had anticipated. Unfortunately, I started having health issues within a couple of years of moving onto the property, and wasn't able to build the grooming portion of the business due to not having the energy (or time) to groom more than 1-2 dogs per day... and grooming was an important component of making the financial aspects come together for running the business. During this time, APAW, the Service Poodle program had been slowly expanding to the point where we decided to have our first litter - Harmony had 9 large, healthy pups - read more about them here: 'A' Litter. ~ Grew-up in 4-H I applied to the two jobs I saw listed (both only part-time), and both scheduled an interview - I started work two weeks after sending out this 'short resume' (good thing no one saw the title and asked for the long one!). So, I finally had a job - YES! And the people were/are great - YES! The facility is fantastic - YES! And I'm mopping floors, cleaning laundry, and helping to restrain patients at a vet clinic :) Nothing wrong with that, especially when you can't nab a job anywhere else, right? LOL. In the mean time, just after getting hired at the vet clinic, I was contacted by NEADS and offered the opportunity to move onto their campus as a 'house parent' for when clients come and stay on-campus for two weeks to train with their new assistance dog. Woohoo!! Of course, that meant that the job I had just accepted was now a 30 mile commute of mainly back roads and schools with arrival at 8am, rather than 15 miles on a main Rt... but how better for the new boss to get to know me and possibly hire me in the future? Now to jump to January 2012... At this point, I'm focusing my 'spare time' (ha!) on the multitude of forms and documents needed for APAW to become officially recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. My 'plan' is that once APAW has this validation, I should be able to find some grant money to pay me enough to cover rent, car insurance and food, and make a go of working for APAW full-time. It will be very exciting once I can do this! Hopefully I'm within 6-12 months of this point now.
Charlie is slightly more difficult, but he has the 'real' Poodle attitude and I think he's perfect. I got Charlie in July '05 at 8 months.
Over the past few years I have been volunteering at NEADS, progressing from dog walker to training assistant and groomer. I have also worked in their puppy house where donated puppies spend two months before going to puppy-raisers. During the summer I turned 16, I apprenticed under a trainer and learned all about training Lap Top Service Dogs. I worked with a variety of shelter dogs and a bunch passed!
I finished a certificate program for animal care at Becker College in Fall '04 and have since taken various classes that interest me. Other than college, I have been homeschooled and I typically have had lot's of time to spend with my dogs, until...
While gone, I wasn't planning on showing at all, but there was an International All Breed Club of America (www.iabca.com) show in the same town - there are only about 6-10 per year in the US - so naturally I *had* to enter Charlie. It was well worth it as he finished his Int'l Ch title in two days with a RBIS!! I'm continuing Charlie's training in obedience, rally, agility and tricks, ever closer to competition level. Charlie and I have a few small shows to see if we're ready for his RN, NA, and CD!
As my health issues got worse over the next couple of years, it was determined that much of the problem was related to allergies that I couldn't escape while living on the property. So it was, that at the end of February '11, Wow Take A Bow closed it's doors.
I temporarily moved back home - with about 8 dogs at various stages of training and placement - for about 6 months while recovering (my health started to return within weeks of moving, though a year later I still have many of the symptoms only to a lesser degree), and then trying to find a job.
What an ordeal!! I sent my resume to many locations, seeking any career in the field, though leaning away from the physical rigors of full-time grooming - I recieved almost *no* responses, and the ones I did get were along the lines of "You waaaay over-qualified, no can hire." [Okay, the sarcasm is mine]. So I decided to switch fields and apply for work as a teacher's aide, particularly working in a special ed. environment... I had a couple of great responses (one that even said I was more qualified than the other 17 applicants, and to call to schedule an interview - never heard back!), and another interview went very well, but the next candidate already had more experience in the field.
So, I decided to contact NEADS and 'see' if there was anything available for me... they had just gone through a couple years of changes in leadership/staff, and the new CEO had no history with me, so alas... In the meantime, I started volunteering under one of the trainers, helping in any way I could while continuing the job search.
Eventually I decided to delete almost everything on my resume, and left it at essentially:
~ Volunteered at a training kennel as a teen
~ Worked the last 3 years in a boarding kennel
~ Have experience grooming
For the first couple of weeks I felt like I was living a double life ["Bond... Jillian Bond"], because I didn't want to let on that I was hired based on a 'lack' of details... once co-workers started seeing me on Animal Planet as the person representing Poodles on an educational series, the cat was out of the bag, so to speak. Fortunately by that time we had all gotten to know each-other, so the matter of my personal compatability with the staff and general atmosphere was the main factor. Slowly I started sharing details about my past, what I've worked at, accomplished, where I'm heading in the journey of life, etc... Soon I was able to start offering grooming services, and recently training as well. DOB 6/21/88 
Yours Truly
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