04 Apr 2026 Cabot’s Michelle Mace blends art, adventure and purpose into everyday life

By Phyllis Ormsby

It’s hard to put a label on the eclectic life of Michelle Mace. She has trained dogs to perform in plays and at Razorback games, trained horses, worked canine search and rescue, and taught herself to play the accordion, piano, guitar and violin while operating her own mobile dog grooming business. In her spare time, she creates artwork from painting and sculpting to needle felting and sewing. She also wants to learn archery from horseback. So you could label her eclectic life, her best life!

“My whole life I’ve been looking for new challenges and new ways to grow and experience everything life has to offer, because it truly is a gift and I want to take full advantage of every possibility,” Mace said. “I just want to see and do everything that’s possible because we’re only here once. I don’t want to miss out.”

Now 56 and living in Cabot, she said her desire to try new things started when she was a kid. Her dad was in the Air Force and she was born here in Arkansas, but Mace grew up in rural Pennsylvania, where most of her family still lives. “There were no kids to play with out there, but we always had plenty of barn cats, a dog and horses. I was out there messing around with the horses, working at liberty, teaching the barn cats how to sit up and jump through hoops,” she said. During those harsh Pennsylvania winters, she was inside working on all sorts of crafts and art projects.

When she and her husband, Kenneth, moved to Arkansas in 1992, she joined a training club and got a German shepherd. Mace worked as a vet tech at a clinic, and the director of a search-and-rescue group invited her to join. That started a 29-year commitment to canine search and rescue, and it became the most enriching period of her life. “Search and rescue took me a lot of places,” she said. “I traveled everywhere to seminars and earned college credits.”

Mace and her dogs have searched through tornado rubble and been called to find evidence for murder investigations. Sometimes, they can reunite a family. Other times, they provide closure. “You have to learn to handle all the emotions. That kind of thing is very sobering. One thing that really helped me is to write about my experiences,” she said. One day, she hopes to compile those memories into a book.

“Search and rescue is something you choose to do. It’s 100 percent volunteer. You have to be ready no matter what you face. You must be trained on HazMats, ready for meth labs with booby traps; we have to recognize those things and keep ourselves and our dogs out of danger,” she said.

The time commitment and the physical strains were heavy. She also lost a lot of time with her family, which had grown to include three daughters, so when her last search-and-rescue dog passed away a couple of years ago, Mace retired. But search and rescue is only part of what she trained her dogs to do. Some became not searchers, but stars.

Mace met Ginger Murry of Murry’s Dinner Playhouse in Little Rock when she started her mobile grooming business back in 2000. The Playhouse celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017 with “The Wizard of Oz.” “I wanted to find a shelter dog to train him to be in the play,” she said. “Afterwards, we adopted him out to an approved home.” 

In 2019 the Playhouse was going to do “Annie.” Mace was already on the hunt for another dog to train for plays, and that’s when she found 9-week-old Hamilton, a scruffy, bewhiskered terrier mix so photogenic that she found an animal talent agency for him. He appeared in advertising for a major pet food brand before he was a year old. Now nearly 8, he has starred in “Annie” five times. 

Then she found and trained Rizzo, a purebred Russell terrier who has played Toto twice and is now 5 years old. “All dogs make great pets but not all do well in these situations,” Mace said. “First off, I want a dog with a stable temperament. I’m not set on a purebred breed. I want a dog that’s outgoing, that wants to be in the middle of everything and has a lot of energy and a lot of drive. Those are the most trainable. Some dogs have been selectively bred to be biddable and take orders from humans. Some are basically bred to be cute and that’s fine, too.”

Dogs with high energy and drive aren’t always the easiest ones to live with, Mace added. “They aren’t going to be happy with just a walk or two during the day.” She’s grateful for the patience and support of her husband in a household with nine dogs, one of which has five puppies.

They do dog sports, like dock diving, Frisbee competitions and scent work, and perform at schools and events like the Cave City Watermelon Festival. Last year they performed at a Razorback football game and a basketball game. “There is nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of hearing 70,000 people roar because your dog just made an incredible catch,” she said. “But the ultimate thing is the partnership. You really cannot force a dog to do anything. They do it because they love it. I love to have other people get to enjoy my dogs.

“The main thing that makes me feel like I’ve succeeded in life is to know that I’ve made a difference in the lives of others. Whether that’s through the work in search and rescue or bringing joy to audiences through a performance, I feel if we could all just try to bring a little joy to others, the world would be a much better place. And my specialty or calling is trying to do that through my dogs.”