Better Mental Health for Older People
IPA - Bulletin - Volume 17, Number 2 - Editors Note - A Cavalier Attitude

IPA Bulletin 

Editors Note

A Cavalier Attitude

The Editor has fallen asleep at the keyboard. I thought opening the second bottle of wine was a bad idea for his productivity, but did nothing, as he drops more morsels on the ground when intoxicated. Having been traduced in these pages six months ago, it seems like a good opportunity to put the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel point of view in this column for a change. 

To start with, I should like to correct the Editor’s mistaken allegation that all I was trying to do on the night I arrived here was to eat his computer mouse. How else is a Cavalier to use the Internet, if not with her teeth and paws? That’s the trouble with humans, always assuming one wants to eat something when one may have a higher purpose in mind.

I have survived six months in the Editor’s house-hold, despite the venerable pair of dowager Cavalier incumbents treating me with the pained tolerance of two spinsters resident at a nineteenth century vicarage towards an unruly and untutored youngster from the colonies, come to take up permanent residence. At seven and a half months, it is now well established that I am the top dog and there is no more nonsense about who gets the best scrap collection position below the meal table. I have not yet been able to end the practice of confining dogs to the laundry overnight, but it is very clear who has first call on the armchairs in the living room - and it is not anyone who walks on two legs.

One of the advantages to spending the night undisturbed in the laundry is the chance to catch up on the daily papers stored there prior to recycling. In recent months I have been interested in articles about the Prince of Wales, and especially those that comment upon the name he should take upon his accession to the throne. Apparently the idea is cur-rent in Royal circles that he should adopt the style George VII, on the grounds that the previous two Charleses had not been good role models. Well I ask you, what can you expect from a family that keeps snappy Welsh sheepdogs? Not only did Charles II restore music to English churches (and what music - by Purcell, Boyce, Blow and others) but have you seen the paintings? Full of my forebears. All right, I know those dogs became the snub-nosed King Charles Spaniels of the modern era, and I am the result of a twentieth century attempt to breed back to the ideal type of the seventeenth century, but how could you damn a monarch who took more interest in the whelping of his favorite bitch than in affairs of state?

I have less to say of note on the topic of IPA because, owing to Australia’s stringent quarantine regulations and Qantas’ failure to provide 2 sq. m. of grass on each flight next to the WC, it is hard for me to travel regularly and I have not yet been to an IPA meeting. I do plan to attend your meeting in Lorne, despite the restrictions that ban me from the beach between November and April. However, I do know something about IPA which is not universally acknowledged, and that is that anyone who will pay the subscription and has an interest in psychogeriatrics is eligible to join. Apparently the Editor met a psychologist in Vancouver who was under the impression that only doctors were allowed to be members! Even I could join if I had a credit card, and so can all of your non-medical colleagues. Tell them about IPA and help it top 2000 members.

Lucy Ames has kindly agreed to be assistant editor of the IPA Bulletin for all matters pertaining to pet therapy. She is the faithful companion of David Ames, Editor, who can be contacted at Royal Park Hospital, Private Bag No. 3, Parkville, Victoria, 3052, Australia (tel: +61 3 9342 2515, fax +61 3 9387 9201, dames@unimelb.edu.au).

Reprinted from IPA Bulletin, Volume 17, Number 2

Copyright 2008 International Psychogeriatric Association