Girl's Best Friend

Jan Fook was born and raised in Sydney and discovered the love of dogs at an early age. In addition to pursuing a career as an academic, she has always had dogs in her home life. She has a firm belief that the vital role dogs play in our happiness is yet to be fully recognized. In the future, Jan hopes to be able to combine her two greatest loves, dogs and writing. In the meantime she is Professor of Social Work at La Trobe University, Bendigo and the author/editor of numerous books including: Transforming Social Work Practice; Breakthroughs in Practice; Radical Casework; Professional Expertise; Critical Social Work in Changing Contexts; and The Reflective Researcher. Renate Klein admits that the joys of dog companionship came to her after establisher herself as a writer and academic. She is Associate Professor of Women's Studies at Deakin University, Melbourne and the author/editor of numerous well know books includes Test Tube Women; Theories of Women's Studies (with Gloria Bowles); Man-Made Women; Infertility; Radically Speaking (with Diane Bell); Radical Voices; CyberFeminism and a number of other anthologies. She says of herself that she still cares passionately about social justice for women, particularly in the area of reproductive and cyber technologies, but her dog, River makes her laugh and cry much more these days and experience pure joie de vivre.

I found both the stories of the dogs and the backgrounds of their owners equally interesting. There are sociologists, artists, poets, academics, teachers, refuge volunteers, writers, editors, politicians, journalists and heaps more. Wendy Parsons, Chin Wag