Rocky & Gawenda: The Story of a Man & His Mutt

’The author has trouble separating fact from fiction.’ - Rocky

Michael Gawenda is one of Australia’s best known journalists and writers. Rocky is his small furry dog of indeterminate breeding, a mutt in other words. Rocky and Gawenda have been in a relationship for more than two years, since Rocky was eight weeks old and Gawenda just a bit older than that. They are best friends who are engaged in a conversation about dogs and love and memory and the meaning of work and the passing of time.

Their relationship has matured in some unexpected ways. Rocky taught Gawenda how good it is to live in the moment. It is not clear what Gawenda has taught Rocky except that human beings can be moody and capricious and lost in their own thoughts.

This record of their relationship, which was originally a popular blog, is funny, joyous, sad at times, and full of delightful surprises. It is a celebration of the love that developed between a dog and his human friend.

Michael Gawenda is a journalist and a former Washington correspondent for the ＂Sydney Morning Herald.＂ He is the former editor in chief of the ＂Age, ＂ a former editor of Australian ＂Time,＂ and a recipient of the Walkley Award for journalism.