Rachel Page Elliott

Writer, researcher and world authority on dogs

Rachel Page (Webster) Elliott, 96, passed away at River Road Farm in Carlisle on March 20, 2009 after a 16-month battle with cancer. “Pagey” was born on February 27, 1913, in Lexington, Massachusetts to Hollis and Helen (Noyes) Webster. She grew up in a large family, the youngest of six children, surrounded by much beloved dogs and horses.

In 1935, she graduated from Radcliffe College (now Harvard University) and served as class president. Several years later, she met a young dentist in Boston, Dr Mark Elliott. On September 9, 1939, they married at the Unitarian Church in Lexington. During World War II, Pagey and Mark moved several times with his service in the Army Air Force Dental Corps. After the war, they moved back to the greater Boston area and bought the 1701 farm along the Concord River in 1946.

River Road Farm became the focus for Pagey and Mark as they raised three children, golden retrievers and Connemara ponies. The Elliotts established their Featherquest Kennel with the American Kennel Club (AKC) and raised more than 50 litters of golden retrievers over the next four decades. Success in the show ring and field trials prompted Pagey’s continuing curiosity about accurate dog breed standards and proper canine structure and movement. Her ground-breaking research into canine movement eventually led to a 30-year career as a researcher, author, videographer, and international lecturer.

In 1973, she wrote and illustrated Dogsteps, a book on canine anatomy and movement. The following year, this book was recognized by the Dog Writers Association of America as the Best Dog Book of the Year. She was also honored in 1974 with the Gaines Award for Dog Woman of the Year. In 1983, an updated book, The New Dogsteps, highlighted her new research in bone and joint motion through the use of cineradiography (moving x-rays) at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Anatomy. She also made a Dogsteps video featuring over 70 different breeds and a DVD, Canine Cineradiography. A nationally and internationally popular lecturer, she became one of the world’s most widely respected authorities on canine structure and movement.

After retiring from the lecture circuit, Pagey focused on two new passions: dog agility training and cutting wooden jigsaw puzzles. She took up dog agility training in 1996 and quickly learned to handle her dogs through a timed canine obstacle course. For the past 12 years, the local ARFF (Agility is Really Fun for Fido) Agility Club has conducted agility training in one of Pagey’s pastures. Thoroughly enjoying the agility fun and challenges, Pagey competed in agility events until she was 91 and even participated in an event for veteran agility dogs last summer.

From childhood, Pagey loved assembling wooden jigsaw puzzles. In 1988, she learned to cut jigsaw puzzles and started creating her own designs. Over the next 20 years, she cut over 1500 puzzles for friends and family as well as for her customers of Pagemark Puzzles. She generously offered her hand-cut puzzles to fundraising events such as auctions for the Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue Association and WGBH Channel 2, the public television station in Boston. In 2005, Pagey donated one of her puzzles for auction at the national meeting of the Golden Retriever Club of America in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The auction raised funds for the Golden Retriever Foundation. The $27,000 winning bid for Pagey’s jigsaw puzzle is now recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest price paid at a charitable auction for a hand-cut jigsaw puzzle.

Although her interests and talents have taken her around the world and given her a worldwide network of friends, Pagey remained an active resident of Carlisle. In 1998, she received the Old Home Day Honored Citizen Award for her extensive work as an “active member of the community, helping form the structure, the activities and the character of the town.”

Reflecting on her rich, varied life, Pagey wrote her memoirs, From Hoofbeats to Dogsteps: A Life of Listening to and Learning from Animals. Her book was officially released at the Golden Retriever Club of America’s National Specialty in September 2008 to great acclaim. In February 2009, Pagey Elliott was inducted into the Dog Writers Association of America Hall of Fame in ceremonies in New York City.

She was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Dr Mark Elliott, her parents, Hollis and Helen Webster; her brothers, Hollis Jr and Albert; and her sisters, Priscilla, Fordham, and Deborah.

She is survived by her daughters, Elizabeth (Maris) Platais of Carlisle and Ruth (Sidney) Holmes of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; son, Mark (Carol) Elliott, Jr, of Bozeman, Montana; four grandchildren, four great grandchildren, her devoted companion Alberta White and many other loving friends.

A memorial service, A Celebration of Her Golden Life, will be held at 2 o’clock on Friday, March 27, 2009 at the First Parish in Concord.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Rachel Page Elliott Educational Fund and sent to the Golden Retriever Foundation, P.O. Box 3462, Omaha, NE 68103 or to the charity of one’s choice. The fund was established in 2005 to honor Pagey Elliott’s lifelong work in the golden retriever community and to support the foundation’s educational mission. (http://www.goldenretrieverfoundation.org/makedonation.asp)