Dogs in the Leisure Experience. Neil Carr

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       Acknowledgements

      This book and all my work on dogs would never have existed without Snuffie and so a great debt of thanks is due to her. To Gypsy, who has striven so wilfully to fill the space left in my life by the death of Snuffie, an equally large ‘thank you’ is in order. Between them, these two dogs continue to help guide my research and impressions of the non-human world. My long-suffering wife (Sarah) and children (Ben, Tat and Gus) also deserve thanks for always being there for me and putting up with the fact that my brain rarely seems to be able to leave its work alone and as a result has subjected them to some weird and obscure holiday and leisure experiences. While I recognize this problematizes definitions of leisure and tourism, my own debate on this issue will have to wait for another day.

      A wide variety of people have helped to make this book possible by giving their time freely to provide me with a vast array of information. I would love to name them all personally yet I am also keenly aware that doing so may be, despite my best intentions, a disservice. So instead I offer thanks to the folk at Guide Dogs for the Blind, UK; the Dogs Trust, UK; a range of hotels and other organizations in Whistler, Canada; and the Greyhound Board of Great Britain. In particular, I would like to thank the staff at the New South Wales State Library for coping with me and aiding me as much as possible. Similarly, I owe a debt of thanks to a range of people at the Kennel Club in the UK but special mention must go to the librarians at the Club who offered me so much help and never complained about my reluctance to leave the library. I would also like to give thanks to the anonymous reviewers of this book; your comments made me look again at my conceptual foundations and dig a little further down. As with virtually all review comments it was not a painless process to react to them, but it was a beneficial one (for me personally and hopefully also for the book) and for that I am very grateful. For everyone else who has helped to make this book possible you know who you are and I offer you my heartfelt thanks. If I have missed you from my list of thanks I am of course only human (as opposed to canine) and can only offer my apologies and still reassure you that I do fully value your help. Finally, as ever, as the author I take full responsibility for any mistakes or errors.

      Neil Carr