On Friday, the pet industry learned that Jacqueline Hill had passed. The co-founder of Answers Pet Food with her sister Roxanne Stone, Hill had continued her mission of bringing raw fermented foods to pet parents, first with Kure Pet Products and then Solutions Pet Products.
Solutions Pet Products shared the news of her passing on Facebook:
Retailers saddened by her loss have been sharing their own experiences with Hill:
“I met Jacqueline several years ago in Nashville at a distributor trade show. I attended a seminar about fermented goat milk and was captivated by her knowledge. After the seminar, I stopped at her booth and asked her if she would consider coming to our store (and she jumped at the opportunity). We talked about my rescues and in particular my senior dog that had been diagnosed with renal failure. She and her sister, Roxanne, gave me so many helpful suggestions through the years to help my own dogs and the ones that I rescued with medical issues! Jacqueline’s passion for pet health and pet nutrition was palpable even just sitting with her for a few minutes! You could not help but be enthusiastic about everything she talked about when it came to helping pets with nutrition. My last time seeing her was at SuperZoo 2021! Her impact on the pet nutrition world was profound and the void she leaves will be vast.” — Alison Schwartz, All Pets Considered, Greensboro, NC
“I met her at a PFX show when my German Shepherd was 12 and stopped eating. Jacqueline gave me her number and told me to call her later that week and she would help me come up with some ideas to get Triana to eat. I called her and let her know that she was still refusing everything except goat’s milk. She calculated how much I would need to give her daily to make sure she was getting enough nutrients, and then she gave me a discount on a months worth of goat’s milk to make sure I could afford to feed her enough for that month. Luckily Triana started eating food again (the patties, but they had to have grill marks on both sides LOL), but for weeks all she would drink was Answer’s goat’s milk. It was seven years ago when I had one little tiny store and could only afford the bare minimum, but she helped me make sure my dog got what she needed. I will never forget that.” — Nancy Guinn, Dog Krazy, Fredericksburg, VA
“I met Jacqueline years ago when Answers was a fairly new company. My distributor rep brought her to my store to meet me and tell me about their products. She was so friendly and knowledgeable, I placed an order on the spot,” . “Over the years, she and her team helped so many of my customers with their dogs health issues. She educated many people along the way, and I am so grateful for the things I learned and can pass on to customers. Her loss is one that can never truly be filled.” — Beth Kidd, Dogs By Design in Irwin, PA
“Jacqueline and Roxanne came to my store in 2009, shortly after I open in 2008,and educated me and my customers on fermented foods and raw goat’s milk. It was a new concept, and I was unsure how it would do, but what she shared with me made sense! Raw goat milk is a powerful product. She would visit us when she came to town to see her son. I loved the stories she would share, especially the one about her drinking fermented fish stock daily. She shared the amazing benefits it had for her … so one of my employees and I tried it … awful! We mixed it with spicy V8, and that didn’t even help the taste! Jacqueline also assisted me when I adopted a diabetic Lab several years ago that was extremely overweight. We were both hoping that through a raw goat milk-only diet that we could reverse his diabetes. We may have not been able to achieve that result, but we were able to reduce his insulin by half.He is doing well at 12.5! Jacqueline was always willing to help me out with my animals! ❤️ — Dorothy Vetrovec, Nature’s Feed, Spring Grove, IL
“I never met Jacqueline personally, but I did meet Billy [Hoekman] and continued to learn from Billy through countless hours of live and recorded videos. I used that info to help my customer base with more amazing success stories than there is time or space to share here. She was a pioneer and mastermind. Her products had a further reach than she probably ever imagined. She will be greatly missed in our community. — Becci Scott, Fetching Dog, Scottsdale, AZ
Friends and colleagues of Hill have established the Jacqueline Fund, with donations being accepted through Dr. Barbara Royal’s Royal Animal Health University Foundation. According to Chelsea Kent, co-founder of Hero’s Pet in Littleton, CO, and Solutions Pet Products, funds will go toward paying transportation costs for the farmers Hill worked with and was personally covering as well as to funeral and memorial expenses.
Additional funds that come in will go toward research and education that continues Hill’s mission, about which Dr. Royal said, “I know that she strongly agreed with many of us that what you put in the food bowl is the most important health decision that can be made for a pet … I believe that Jacqueline would be pleased to see a memorial fund in her honor to do just that.”
To donate, click here. Be sure to include the note: “For Jacqueline Fund.”