Buster's Diaries: The True Story of a Dog and His Man (10 page)

But the great thing about Green Park is the effect it has on the Man. Now that he has convinced himself I won’t commit suicide
by throwing myself under a bus in Piccadilly, he is far more relaxed, and, since I reflect his moods, I am too. In St James’s
I was weighed down with the responsibility of convincing him that the walk would not end in catastrophe. So, apart from the
one goose, I behaved very well. In fact, in general I behaved better than he did. It was not me who said to the park keeper,
“If you try to kick my dog again, I shall kick you and I won’t miss. He was only trying to look in your wheelbarrow.”

In Green Park I run about in a way which I pride myself is both uninhibited and responsible—never going too far away to hear
his call, and eventually responding to it. Self-respect requires that I take my
time. He didn’t want a Sealyham or a dachshund, so he must not expect me to behave like one. And since he boasts to his friends
that I am “a dog of character,” he ought to rejoice when I prove him right in Green Park.

There is, however, one disadvantage to our new route. We approach the park across the front of Buckingham Palace, where the
Queen lives. The Queen must be one of the Man’s best friends, because we always have to be on our very best behavior when
we go past her house. If I so much as pause by the wall or railings, he yanks the lead so hard that my collar almost takes
my head off. Then he winds the lead so tightly round his hand that I have to walk close up against him. He says, “Come on,
Buster! Light-infantry pace.” He always says that when he is agitated. All I can think of is how to avoid him standing on
my paws, but he goes on about what will happen if I try to bite anyone.

This morning, even though we went past Buckingham Palace very early, the road outside was crowded with people. I think they
were Japanese. They usually are. They are pack animals like dogs. They hunt in groups, each one led by a lady who holds an
umbrella up in the air, whether it is raining or not. They always
look at us as if they have never before seen a man and dog fastened together by a piece of string. This morning, one of them
pointed his camera at me and made a big flash. When I barked the Man told me, “They eat dogs in Japan. If you do that again,
I shall let them take you home for breakfast.” I did not believe he would do it. But just to think of such a thing reveals
a distressingly vicious streak in his character.

For the first time in my life I have been left alone all night. They both went out as soon as I had had my last walk and did
not come back again until after breakfast time today. They thought that I did not realize they had gone. Stupidly they forgot
about my fifth sense—since they don’t have much of it themselves. Perhaps I ought to have been pleased that for once I could
sleep free from the smell of humans. But I felt very lonely.

When he came back, the Man was very tired but happy. He kept saying having Norman Tebbit there all night made victory all
the sweeter. Can this be the
Norman or Lord Tebbit that we met in the park? And, wherever they spent the night, did Norman or Lord Tebbit take his dogs
with him? The Man kept saying, “We have waited for this for eighteen years.” I shan’t mind if it’s another eighteen before
they leave me on my own again.

The Man says Green Park has gone to my head. All the running with Silky, Sandy, Cliquot and Lenny is supposed to use up my
energy. But on the way home today I had some left over. So when I saw a young lady dancing along in a way which made her arms
wave about, I danced along beside her. I was still on the short lead, so it wasn’t easy, but I managed to get a little friendly
nip at her sleeve.

“Look what your dog’s done,” she said to the Man. “It’s torn my sleeve.” It was not a very big tear. “Has he done that?” the
Man asked, as if he hadn’t seen me do it. “It’s only fun, you know. It’s his way of being friendly” That was true. But the
young lady did not seem to think it made up for having her sleeve torn. “I
will pay for it,” the Man said and she gave us her address. She turned out to be a neighbor, but I do not think the Man wants
to see her again.

The Man talked about the young lady most of the way home. “1 don’t think she’s the sort who would go to the police. But you
never know. Better give her enough to keep her happy.” Then he said to me, “More training for you, my lad. We’ll have to have
Steve round again. More discipline.” Then he groaned. I think he dislikes discipline more than I do.

Realization

In which Buster begins to rediscover life’s harsh reality and, briefly, feels grateful for his good fortune, before relapsing
into some of his old bad ways.

When the Man got home last night, he took his coat off and went into one of those strange routines which make me doubt his
sanity Tired though I was, I tried to gratify his whim. The usual ritual involves an oddly shaped piece of red rubber which
he calls a bone—though it does not resemble any bone I have ever chewed. For reasons I cannot imagine, he enjoys throwing
it to the far end of the hall. Crying “Fetch it!” and “Quickly! Quickly!” he then waves in the direction of the point on the
carpet where the “bone” landed.

Usually I humor him by behaving like a retriever—which I am certainly not. But then he throws
the “bone” down the hall again and expects me to go through the whole routine once more. Being human, he is profoundly cynical.
So he assumes that I pander to his strange tastes because I get a biscuit as a reward for running about with a foul-tasting
piece of rubber in my mouth. In fact, it is my contribution to the Care in the Community organization.

The “bone” ritual being over, I am expected to do what, in his vulgar way, he describes as “give him a cuddle” on the sofa.
This requires me to sit next to him and, when he pretends not to be looking, suddenly lick his face. Actually, as long as
I am not too tired, I do not mind it very much. Face-licking is natural to me. It is how young wolves tell their parents they
are hungry and invite them to regurgitate some unwanted food. And I have not quite forgotten my primitive roots. But he never
regurgitates unwanted food. So I slide down onto his knee and sleep as soundly as I can with him fidgeting about with the
television remote control. Through my dreams I can hear him talking about devotion.

I thought at first that Steve from Blue Cross was my friend, because he said that when I did something right I should be rewarded
with a biscuit. Now I am not so sure. This afternoon, he brought the Man a book. There was a drawing of a dog on the cover
and, in big letters, the words
DOG-TRAINING FOLDER.
Beneath the drawing of the dog it said, “This folder belongs to… .” The Man wrote “Buster.” Steve said, “You’ll have to treat
it seriously or we’ll get nowhere.” Pages one and two were about old stuff—the rules which I resent but accept with dignity
and don’t need to be rubbed in. “The family eat their food first… . The family clear away after eating… . Your dog is then
fed.” The quality of the advice can be judged from rule three. “No food to be given to your dog by anyone while they are eating.”
If Blue Cross can’t get the grammar right, their views on dog-training are unlikely to amount to much. But I am reconciled
to mealtime tyranny. I was not, however, prepared for section two. It was called “Ignore the Dog” and the title page was illustrated
with a drawing of a neglected
puppy and a woman who was too fat to be an advertisement for mealtime discipline.

The next pages said, “No touching. No looking. No talking”—all the things that make a dog’s life worthwhile. “When your dog
demands attention in any way from anybody, they [same mistake again] must completely ignore it. If your dog keeps demanding,
turn away, stand up or leave the room.” There was then a list of all the things I most like to do. “Using the paw. Nudging
with its muzzle. Staring at people. Barking, whimpering, whining. Stealing items and running off with them. Body-slamming
people. Mouthing, nipping, biting. Putting its head on laps.” Body-slamming is my favorite. I am not supposed to do any of
them.

It then said, “This seems harsh, cruel and can be an emotional strain, but the reward of a better-behaved dog is worth the
effort.” Worth it for whom? Certainly not for me.

We have been in the park every morning this week and Silky was nowhere to be seen. Nobody—not Lenny,
Cliquot or Sandy—knows what has happened to her. They think she is all right because her owner is a nice man and will look
after her. But we are all afraid she has moved to another town.

The Man says I shall forget her quite quickly, as my memory is very bad. That is, in a way, true. I do not think of Silky
when we are at home. But when we are in the park, I wonder why there is nobody to jump on me. I am a creature of habit. One
of my habits used to be running headlong at Silky and knocking her over. Cliquot and Lenny are too low down to knock over,
and Sandy spends most of his time in the air, jumping after his stupid rubber ring.

In the afternoon we went into the village of Bakewell to get more sawdust balls—“for dogs with a tendency to put on weight.”
I was not allowed into the pet shop. When the Man came out, instead of complaining about how much I cost to keep, as I had
expected, he said, “Buster, you’ll never believe what I’ve just seen. There is a dog in there which is almost as tall as
Barley and even heavier.” He looked so surprised that I believed him.

Barley is the Irish wolfhound in our village. He is so big that he can lean his elbows on a six-foot wall. As far as I know
he has never jumped over it. I can jump over any wall I can lean my elbows on. Barley is, no doubt, too big to be athletic.
That is why I would not like to be in his collar.

I would not like to be the big dog at Bakewell either. If what the Man says is true, he sits in a little room of his own and
never moves. This is not because the pet-shop owner is unkind. It is because the dog, which is called Tchaikovsky, is only
a puppy (fourteen months old) and his legs are not strong enough to bear his weight. He weighs fourteen and a half stones,
and in a year, will weigh sixteen. By then, his legs will be strong enough for him to go on walks.

Tchaikovsky is a Saint Bernard, which means he has bloodshot eyes and several double chins. When the pet-shop owner came out
to the car with a sack of sawdust balls, the Man asked him, “When Tchaikovsky grows up, will he have a brandy barrel hanging
from his neck?” The pet-shop owner said, “Everybody asks that,” and the Man stopped smiling.

We have changed the route by which we go to the park in the mornings. We still go past the offices of the Transport and General
Workers” Union and he still says when I stop near the wall, “Go on, Buster. You do that to them, like they did it to me in
1976, during the Winter of Discontent.” But we do not turn left between the two pubs with the tubs of flowers outside their
doors. The Man has read in the
Evening Standard
diary that the pub owners are angry with me, and he does not want to meet them face to face.

On warm nights the pub owners’ customers stand outside the pubs on the pavement. As well as making it difficult for people
to walk past, they waste bits of perfectly good food by pushing it into the soil in the flower tubs. Naturally, when I walk
past, I want to dig it up and eat it. Unfortunately, it is impossible to dig up the food without digging up the flowers. “I
don’t know how you do it so quickly,” the Man said to me. He sounded really proud of me.

I have discovered a new way to frighten the Man. It is called mad running. Mad running should not be confused with pointless
running, at which I have been adept for some time. Mad running is more frenzied. Mad running is only possible when he and
I are joined together by the long lead. This is how I do it. I walk demurely for some time. Then I suddenly set off at full
speed and keep going until (this is a joke!) I am at the end of my tether. Then, without slowing down, I run round him in
circles. This requires him a) quickly to change the lead from hand to hand, b) to rotate until he is dizzy, or c) to allow
the lead to wind round him like cotton round a bobbin.

Whichever he chooses, he is pretty confused for a while. Before he has time to recover, I turn in from the circle, charge
at him as fast as I can go, and leap in the air just before we collide. Sometimes I hit him, sometimes I don’t. At first,
he thought I had gone crazy. He pulled on the lead until he caught me and then began to calm me down by rubbing behind my
ears and scratching my tummy Sometimes he sinks to his knees on the wet grass so as to calm me better. Calming
always included giving me a biscuit. I was sorry when he decided that it wasn’t rabies after all.

Really, he ought to be flattered. I am treating him like another dog, which is what he pretends to like. If he had my powers
of observation, he would have noticed that mad running and crazy jumping are exactly what I did in the park when Silky was
there.