Online FrankTALK with Laura Greaves

A long life is considered a life well-lived, and the same goes for our four-legged friends. In this heartfelt new collection from award-winning author Laura Greaves, we meet fifteen elderly dogs who, despite their age, are doing extraordinary things all around the world.

No matter how old they are, dogs improve our general wellbeing, keep us fit and active, boost our mental health and reduce our stress. Yet it’s all too common for senior dogs to be dumped at shelters or passed off to new homes once they reach a certain age; some of us see caring for an ailing or elderly dog as a burden rather than a reward.

This collection aims to challenge this by showcasing the incredible lives of older dogs including:

- Haole, who battled cancer, learned to surf, and changed the lives of dozens of young children with disabilities at a surf therapy organisation.
- Maya, the conservation detection dog who sniffs out important koala habitat. She paved the way in research to establish the team of dogs that were involved in koala recovery during the Australian Black Summer fires.
- Maggie, the Australian Kelpie from a small farm in Victoria considered to be the world’s oldest dog.
- Chilli, who started his acting career later in life and was most notably featured in A Place to Call Home.
- Chaser, the dog described as ‘the smartest dog in the world’. She could ‘talk’, understand full sentences, and kept learning throughout her life. Even in old age, she could identify over 1000 objects by name.

Uplifting and truly incredible, these elderly dogs have saved lives, helped the disabled community, inspired stunning artworks, and survived against the odds, proving time and time again that age is just a number. Above all, they teach us the secret to living to a ripe old age is simply to be happy, to love and be loved in return.

Laura Greaves is a multi-award-winning journalist, author and proud ‘crazy dog lady’. She has spent more than twenty years writing for newspapers and magazines in Australia and around the world and is the former editor of Dogs Life magazine. She is the author of the collections Incredible Dog Journeys, Dogs with Jobs, The Rescuers and Miracle Mutts, the children’s book Amazing Dogs with Amazing Jobs, as well as three romantic comedy novels, Be My Baby, The Ex-Factor and Two Weeks ’Til Christmas, all of which feature an extensive supporting cast of cheeky canines. She is also a two-time winner of the Dog Writers Association of America’s Rio Award, which honours a book that celebrates the human-animal bond.

Please join us for this FrankTALK with Laura Greaves via Zoom.