Diane Carson - 2023 - Pioneer of Dog Agility

In the earliest days of introducing dog agility to North America, founder Ken Tatsch worked with an Advisory Board of dedicated dog owners who helped support the sport through its formative years. Among those individuals were Janet Gaunt and the late Chris Danielly, who were previously inducted into the USDAA Hall of Fame as Pioneers for other contributions (2014 and 1997, respectively). We are pleased to recognize the remaining Advisory Board members for contributing their ideas and talents in service to the sport’s development, with Jim Basic, Diane Carson, Tom Kula and Stacy Peardot-Goudy joining Janet and Chris in the Hall of Fame as Pioneers of Dog Agility. 

Jim Basic, Diane Carson,
Tom Kula and Stacy Peardot-Goudy

The collective efforts of this early Advisory Board helped to build a framework to expand USDAA’s tournament series and to further evolve USDAA’s title certification program by introducing new recognition awards, most notably the Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA) and Top 10.  

Jim, Diane, Tom and Stacy were among the country’s first USDAA judges, and along with Janet and Chris, they dedicated their time and expertise to expand the sport nationwide. They are credited with various equipment specifications and were engaged in evaluating performances year to year under USDAA standards to aid in the sport’s evolution.  

Other collective accomplishments included developing qualification criteria to compete at the Cynosport, transitioning from manual scorekeeping processes to computerized scorekeeping and establishing criteria for team selection for IFCS international competition.  

Their list of individual accomplishments with USDAA is significant, but together, they truly set the standard for dog agility in the United States. We greatly appreciate all they have done for the sport and congratulate them on their induction into the Hall of Fame.