Jackie Beare: Futurity Judge
Born in Geneva, Switzerland, on Christmas Day 1952, I currently live about 20 miles from that city with my husband, Peter, a retired banker. After having obtained a degree in Business Administration at the University of Geneva and made a successful career in commercial banking, I was recruited as a financial analyst by a finance company belonging to a large car manufacturer.
My family has owned various pet dogs ever since I can remember. We acquired our first Basset Hound bitch in England in 1978. The local breed club very soon persuaded us to show her, and we have never looked back! My mother, Grace Servais, started breeding on a small scale under the Bellecombe affix in 1984, using English and European bloodlines. In the late 80s she acquired an American bitch, CH Lochopt Fantastik, in order to broaden our gene pool and attenuate some of the exaggerations that we felt had crept into the breed in Europe. Over the years, the happy combination of selected European and American bloodlines has enabled us to produce several beautiful hounds who became Swiss and International champions. In 2008, my mother changed her kennel name to New Bellecombe, which I have since shared with her. Our first "joint" litter was born in 2009 out of Bellecombe No no Nanette (Foxglen United We Stand x Balmacara Maigold. Nanette was campaigned in the USA, where she rapidly gained her championship title and went on to win four more national championships and become an International (FCI) Champion.
I became a breed specialist of Basset Hounds, and started my judging career in FCI countries in 2005, which was also the year I joined BHCA and came over for my very first Nationals. Since then, I have acquired several other rare hound breeds, and am currently a candidate-judge of Dachshunds and Swiss Hounds.
I belong to several breed clubs in Switzerland and abroad, and have been Show Secretary of the Basset Hound Club of Switzerland since 2006. Two years later, I was elected as a Committee member of the BHCS, then became a member of its Breeding Commission, and finally was elected as the club’s President in 2011.