Buster's Diaries: The True Story of a Dog and His Man (8 page)

The solicitor telephoned at lunchtime to say that the Man had been fined £25 for not keeping me on a lead and £50 for letting
me kill the goose. He would also have to pay £200 costs. The Man did not seem to mind. He was much more upset to learn that
“the place was full of journalists.”

This morning began last night. The Man would not go to bed until today’s papers were on sale near Victoria Railroad Station,
and I had to stay awake and go with him. A Rastafarian offered to buy me for £50. The Man said, “Not for five thousand,” and
the Rastafarian said, “He is not worth five thousand.” I had liked him until then.

All the papers had stories about me. The Man says I must be careful not to be spoilt by fame, and he
has refused to allow me to go on television. I heard him say on the telephone, “All it needs is an exploding lightbulb or
a cameraman with a sandwich and all hell will be let loose.”

The newspaper stories all contain terrible puns—up in front of the beak, fowl play and goose being cooked. The Man said, “You
come out of it better than I do. You’re only an assassin. I’m a journalist.” I don’t think that I come out of it badly at
all.

The Man has joined Passports for Pets. It is an organization that wants me to go on holiday to France. In fact I can already
go on holiday to most places. But I am not allowed back.

All the French dogs are mad and foam at the mouth and run around France biting people. The people they bite die. The dogs
they bite die as well, but not until they have bitten people and killed them. I cannot go to France because, if I did, a French
dog would bite me and, when I came back, I would bite Englishmen and kill them.

Passports for Pets wants to stop all this happening, but I am not sure how they will do it. I am not even sure that I want
to go to France.

I think I have fallen in love again. This morning, when we went on our usual walk across the fields to the old railway line,
a golden-haired retriever bounced up to me, and for a moment I forgot about the sheep that I was hoping to turn into mutton.
I fear my emotions were embarrassingly obvious, for the Man said, in his most coy voice, “What about Silky? Have you forgotten
her?” Of course I’ve forgotten her. I can’t remember much for more than twenty-four hours—though, if we ever meet again, all
the old feelings will come flooding back.

The golden-haired retriever is called Flora and her hair—which is more like copper than gold—shines in the sun. She lives
in a family of six other dogs. All of them were out for a walk with her, but she came straight over to have a sniff at me.
I sniffed back at once. The Man said, “Better come
away, Buster.” But Flora’s owner said, “No problem at the moment. But I’m counting off the days.” I’m counting off the days
too. We will be back in Derbyshire next week.

Flora is lost to me for ever. This morning, on our way to the old railway line, we saw half a dozen dogs coming towards us
across the fields and the Man said, “Look, Buster. It’s Flora.” It wasn’t. And it would have been much better if I had not
been reminded about her.

The Man asked Flora’s owner where she was. I do not know what the answer was but the Man said—with remarkable lack of sensitivity—“Well
that’s that Buster. When you next see Flora she’ll be an old married lady with puppies to look after. She’s gone away to spend
the week with another thoroughbred golden-haired retriever.” My only consolation is that I have a memory span of only twenty-four
hours.

The Man went mad this morning. I hope that it is only temporary. Usually I get into trouble if I go within a yard of his bathroom
door. But just before lunchtime, he dragged me inside. I had barely begun to shake a towel to death when he picked me up and
dropped me into the bath. It was half full of warm water.

Not content with it lapping against my stomach, he splashed it all over me. Then he got a bottle from a shelf and poured something
sticky on my back. “Don’t worry, Buster,” he said. “It’s specially for dogs. If it goes into your eyes, it won’t hurt.” Until
then I had not thought about it going into my eyes, so I had not worried. I started to worry when he told me not to.

The sticky stuff out of the bottle bubbled all over me and he splashed me again until it was all washed off. That is when
I knew he was mad. Why else would he put the sticky stuff on me one minute and wash it off the next?

The Man let the water out of the bath whilst I was still inside. Then he rubbed me with the towel I had tried to shake to
death. That was the only nice part of the whole thing. He did not get me dry, so I shook my coat. Then we were both wet all
over. The
Man retaliated by insulting me. “At least you don’t smell any more,” he said. Everybody knows I am very clean. It said so
on the advertisement when the dogs” home put me up for sale.

Everybody is behaving very strangely. The Man has brought a tree into the house and planted it in the hall. The tree has very
strange fruit and flowers. The fruit rattles when I shake the tree and the flowers glow when the Man switches the lights on.
I am not allowed to go anywhere near the tree.

There is another tree—only much bigger—on the grass opposite our house. As soon as it got dark, the flowers lit up and thousands
of people arrived to stand round it and make a noise. Most of them made the same noise but, with my expert dog ears, I could
tell that one or two were making a different noise from the rest. I sat in the window between the curtains and the glass and
barked. I did not bark very convincingly. There were too many people for one dog to frighten away.

Tolerance

In which Buster meets—in diverse circumstances—a variety of other animals and struggles, with different degrees of success,
to regard them as friends.

The Man got up late this morning and said that he always regretted it afterwards. I think he meant that he regretted keeping
me waiting. We did not go on our long walk until the afternoon. In the fields on the way to Baslow, there was still a lot
of snow on the ground. I like snow. It tickles my stomach. The Man says it makes me more stupid than ever.

On the way home I was let off the lead when She said that I “needed to stretch my legs.” The Man said, “We’ll regret it,”
but, as usual, She got her way I stretched my legs by running back to where the cows were—three fields away. I did not harm
them, but
herded them into a friendly little group by running round them in ever-decreasing circles. The Man said, “Look at Buster,
he’s evolved from hunting to animal husbandry,” and She said, “Don’t be stupid. Catch him.”

Since, unlike me, the Man always does what She tells him, he tried to catch me and fell down in the snow several times. The
farmer, who came up in a tractor, said, “You’re just making him more excited. He’s doing no harm. Just wait till he gets tired.”
It took a long time for me to get tired. When I did and went back to the Man, he forgot which lead he should use, and I had
to walk home so close to him that he stood on my paws twice. He kept saying, “I blame you for that.” I don’t think he was
speaking to me.

I can’t honestly say I like being left alone in Derbyshire, but it is better than being left alone in London. In Derbyshire,
I am left to run up and down the stairs. So I can sit on the window seat on the front landing and growl at everything that
comes past. I can also push
open one of the bedroom doors and lie on the bed. The Man thinks he fastens it shut before he goes out, but the latch doesn’t
work.

Running up and down stairs and barking is immensely tiring work, so I normally doze off after an hour or two. However, it
is absolutely essential that I wake before the Man opens the front door, otherwise he suspects that I have not been properly
vigilant and mocks me. He has begun to creep down the path—and sometimes even goes round to the back and comes in through
the kitchen. If I am not there the moment he gets inside the house, he shouts, “Very slow, Buster. Very slow.” He knows I
hate being laughed at. He expects me to slink away in shame. Of course I just jump at him in the usual way.

There was an unfortunate misunderstanding on our railway journey from London this afternoon. Usually I quite enjoy the journey
to Derbyshire. I lie, with my head on the Man’s foot, under the table and allow the rhythm of the swaying engine gently to
rock me to
sleep. For most of the time, he keeps his fingers in my collar, ready to reassure me that all is well if anybody to whom
I may take exception passes.

All went well as far as Leicester. He bought a large Kit Kat from the trolley service and, as usual, all I got was a bottle
of water. Just north of Market Harborough, I fell asleep and dreamed, not of rabbits and rats as usual, but of a man and a
dog who enjoyed an ideal relationship. The man drank the water and the dog had the large Kit Kat.

I blame the ticket collector for what happened next. At first he did a very good job—taking great care not to stand on my
tail when he punched the Man’s ticket. Then he got chatty with the Man. First he talked about the Labour Party, then about
Sheffield Wednesday soccer club. The Man only likes talking to me during train journeys. But he said “Yes” and “No” a lot.
Before the ticket collector left, he leant over and tried to shake the Man’s hand. Before you judge me, put yourself in my
position.

I was lying half asleep on the floor of a swaying railway carriage and my view of what was going on above was obscured by
the table. All I saw was a quick movement of feet and an arm moving swiftly towards
the Man. From where I lay, it was impossible to distinguish between a handshake and a blow. I only did my duty.

Fortunately, the damage was done to the trousers, not the leg and, at the time, it seemed likely that it could be easily remedied.
The tear, admittedly from hip to ankle, ran down where the seam already fastened two pieces of cloth together. So it could
have been worse. But the Man still offered to pay for a new pair.

The ticket collector was very good about it, rightly saying that it was my job to look after the Man. He added that he would
not like to meet me in a dark alleyway. Quite right. I took that as a compliment. For the next mile or two the Man held my
collar a bit too tight. But everything seemed all right until the head ticket collector came round and said, “My colleague
told me of what happened. The dog attacked him.” By “the dog,” he meant me.

The Man, very reasonably I thought, said, “He only caught his trousers.” But the head ticket collector replied, “It might
have been his leg.” He went on to give a lecture about what a danger I could be to passing children and elderly ladies who
could not spring back.
The Man does not like lectures, but he listened politely until the head ticket collector told him he should buy a muzzle.
Then he pointed to the hated halti, which was still round my head just below my eye and above my mouth. “That stops him biting,”
the Man said. The head ticket collector told him, “It doesn’t seem to be working.” The Man looked very upset. “It’s a muzzle
for you, Buster,” he said. “Paws U Like as soon as we get back to London.”

We have bought a patent muzzle. It is called the Baskerville and it is made of plastic. He normally says that only real leather
is good enough for a dog of my quality, but he justified buying a plastic Baskerville with the pretence that he found the
name funny. Apparently, it reminded him of a basket—which it looks like when you hold it up by the straps—a wicker vest and
a hound that lived on Dartmoor and tore out the throats of innocent passersby. “The problem,” he said, “is that when you wear
it, people will think you’re very fierce.” I want people to think I am very fierce. I
am not as fierce as I was—which is why I like the Baskerville giving the wrong impression.

I would much rather wear the Baskerville than the halti. I hardly know when the Baskerville is on. I can open my mouth inside
it and the Man can push tiny cat biscuits (called Kitbits) through the plastic bars. But the best thing about it is the impression
it creates. The Man was right to say it would frighten people. I only wear it on railway trains. But he has to put it on before
we get to the station, so I walk the full length of the platform looking as if I am too vicious to be trusted. One lady asked,
in awe, if I was a rottweiler. Her question seemed to make the Man angry. He told her my name is Hannibal Lector, which is
not true. There is much to be said for a muzzle. But I wish it wasn’t made of plastic. I deserve something with more class.

This morning in the park I made an understandable but terribly embarrassing mistake. A person, standing with his feet absolutely
still, was moving the rest of himself about in a strange way First he held his arms in the air and made them sway like branches.
Then he fluttered his fingers like leaves. The Man now claims that the person was doing something called “Tai Chi” to guarantee
his tranquillity during the day But, at the time of the incident, I think we were both equally confused. I, at least, admit
my error. I thought the person was a tree. I am sure it is possible to be tranquil even with wet shoes.