Buster's Diaries: The True Story of a Dog and His Man (9 page)

I have begun pointless barking. I have enjoyed pointless running and pointless jumping for some time, but pointless barking
is a new enthusiasm. My barking is now as undiscriminating as Lizzie Bennett’s coughs. Because he was worried about the neighbors
complaining,
the Man looked up “barking” in his dog book. It appeared immediately after “bad breath.”

Barking, the book said, is employed to intimidate, welcome or to call up reinforcements. Where I live you could wear your
vocal chords down to their roots and reinforcements would not arrive. There is something that yaps next-door-but-one and a
miniature Scots terrier twenty yards up the road. I doubt if either of them can hear me and if they could they are not the
sort of dog which you expect to have much esprit de corps. Even if they came, they would not be much use. There were bigger
rats in the garden where I was born.

This morning, in the park, I was bitten on the ear by Oscar, the mad Italian retriever. I blame the Man. He calls Oscar “Benito”
and told me that as he was Italian I had nothing to be afraid of, because he would run away at the first sight of danger.
That was not true, and I have a tear in my ear to prove it.

The Man took me to the vet straight away where, naturally enough, a needle was stuck in me. This time,
I did not go to sleep. The vet said the needle was a precaution in case Oscar’s teeth were dirty and my ear turned septic
and fell off, and that the tear in my ear would heal very quickly but I might have an unsightly scar unless he put a stitch
in my ear. The Man—who I suspect is jealous of my good looks—said, “If it’s just cosmetic, we won’t bother.” I shall go through
life scarred.

All this has made me even more doubtful about Passports for Pets. Until this morning I thought dogs ought to be allowed to
travel abroad without being locked up in kennels when they came back to England. Now I am not so sure. I think it’s right
that English dogs should be allowed to go abroad. But I do not think that foreign dogs—particularly Italians—should be allowed
to come here. If we are not careful, we will be swamped.

I have decided to limit pointless barking to the house, where the Man is amused by it whether or not he says, “Shut up, Buster.
You’re driving me mad.” Out on walks
I now bark with more discrimination—as befits an increasingly sophisticated dog.

When we pass dogs on the road, in fields or when I am pulling the Man up one of the nearby hills, I never bark first. If I
can get near enough, I jump at them, but it is always a silent jump. But if they start to bark, I always bark more loudly
and for much longer. That shows who is boss.

I still bark when he stops to talk to people. But not for long. He has now learnt to scratch my head whilst in conversation.
Although I am impatient to move on, the head-scratching always keeps me quiet.

Back in London we often walk past the home of a big, fawn-colored boxer called Jake. He always barks at us in a very loud
voice and runs along the inside of his garden fence so that he can keep barking at close quarters. I never reply. He is guarding
his territory just as I guard mine, and must be respected for the thorough way in which he does the job.

My reason for not replying to Jake is quite different from the reasons for which I ignore the little yelping Scottie in Station
Road up here in Derbyshire. The little Scottie lives with a cat so, no matter how much he yelps, I do not condescend to notice
him.

We were joined in the park this morning by two retrievers we had not seen before. Their names are Ben and Novak. Their owner,
who was very grim and serious, is called Norman or Lord Tebbit. The two dogs are better trained than any other dogs in the
park. They may be better trained than any other dogs in the world. Norman or Lord Tebbit makes them sit side by side on the
path. Then he throws a ball and tells Ben to fetch it. Novak sits absolutely still until Ben returns. Then it is Novak’s turn
to get the ball and Ben’s turn to sit still. None of the other dogs—the regulars who run about together each morning— dared
go anywhere near them. Like our owners, we just watched in terror and amazement.

When Norman or Lord Tebbit had taken Ben and Novak home, some of the humans said that they were glad that their dogs did not
behave like that. I did not believe them. I think they were envious. Although I would hate to be so well behaved, I liked
Norman or Lord Tebbit. I thought he was very sensible. He asked the Man, “Is this Buster?” When the Man admitted it, Norman
or Lord Tebbit said, “I think he’s had a worse
press than he deserves. He ought to hire a publicist to improve his image.”

Another visit to Paws U Like by him and another profound embarrassment for me. This morning he went to buy a bag of sawdust
balls and came home with Lumineck, a fluorescent collar which glows yellowy-white in the dark. I am to wear it when we go
out at night so as to be clearly visible. On our evening walks we never leave the pavement. So the collar can only be protection
against cars which mount the curb and threaten to cut me down as I sniff my way along the footpath. But he still put it on
before we went out at eleven o’clock.

Sometimes I think he has no idea of the traumas he causes me. The blood of tundra wolves runs through my veins. My instinct
is to stalk my prey, silent and unseen. How can I live out my destiny if I have an illuminated neck? He thinks it all a great
joke. “Dog collar,” he cried, giggling. “It looks like a proper dog collar. The Reverend Doctor Buster.” I thought of
nights in Siberia, baying at the moon and waiting to rip out the throat of an unwary traveller.

I wonder what tea tastes like. I only drink water and had never thought of it until the Man’s mother wanted to give me some
this afternoon. But I have thought of it ever since she poured some into her saucer this afternoon. “Buster doesn’t drink
tea,” the Man said. “Don’t you listen to the vet?” she demanded. “The vet recommends a saucer of tea every day.” The Man did
not look up from his newspaper. “Mine doesn’t,” he said. I could see that his mother was getting angry, and I lay down behind
the sofa. But the Man didn’t seem to notice her change of mood. “You go to Mr Newton, don’t you?” his mother asked. She seemed
to know the answer already. “Mr Newton is the one who told me that dogs should have a saucer of tea every day. If he told
me, why didn’t he tell you? He said it was good for dogs” coats.”

“His coat looks all right to me,” the Man said, with total justification. Indeed, most people regard my
coat as absolutely magnificent. One young lady asked if I had highlights put in at the hairdresser’s. Even his mother could
not claim that it was capable of improvement, so she said, “Don’t be silly I didn’t mean him. I meant dogs in general. I give
Sally a saucer every afternoon.” It hasn’t done much for her coat. She looks like a moth-eaten goat. I do not need tea, but
I would still like to know what it tastes like.

When I bit the Man today, it caused me far more pain than it caused him. His hand didn’t even bleed, but I was deeply wounded
by what the incident revealed about his understanding of my character. After more than a year of close friendship, he still
seems confused about the difference between dogs and people.

As usual, in the early evening, I was sleeping on the sofa, occasionally stretching my back legs just for the pleasure of
hearing him say, “Don’t push, Buster.” Then I began to dream. I dream a lot, though I seldom remember what I dream about.
The Man pretends he knows. I am often woken up by his shouting, “Look,
Buster’s chasing rabbits in his sleep. Look, you can see him running after them.” I take no notice and doze off again as
soon as he has quietened down.

But this evening I had a bad dream. A pointer had stolen my rawhide bone and a greyhound was sleeping in my bed. Twenty giant
cats were chasing me down Victoria Street and a ghostly goose was whispering in my ear that it would haunt me for ever. Naturally,
I whimpered a bit. Who wouldn’t in the circumstances?

Stupidly, the Man leant down and, patting me on the head, said something he hoped would be encouraging. Although the patting
had disturbed me, I was still half asleep. But I think he said, “You’re all right, Buster. You’re home with me.” At the time
it was just the noise that went with the blow to my head. Thanks to my reflexes—which are like a coiled spring—I had turned
and snapped before I was fully conscious. I had never heard the Man howl before.

As soon as he had made sure he was not bleeding and he would not have to go to the vet, the Man said he forgave me. All She
said is that it proved that I could never sleep on the bottom of the bed. I did not know the idea had ever been discussed.
Now I think about it, I am very much in favor.

My communications crisis has deepened. I have developed a huge repertoire of endearing noises. Each one of them has a precise
meaning—time to go out, I’m dying of hunger, I can’t get the rubber bone from behind the desk and there ought to be room on
the sofa for me. I do not expect him to hear high-pitched whistles. For he is no more a sheepdog than I am and I can’t even
hear his cell phone ring if it’s in his inside pocket. He ought to take the trouble to understand what I say to him. But whatever
question I ask or suggestion I make, he has two stock responses. He either accuses me of whining or denounces me for attention-seeking.

To make things worse, I am having increasing difficulty in understanding some words he says. When I barked at a man in the
street this afternoon, he said, “Buster, I sometimes find your idiosyncrasies incomprehensible.” When I almost strangled myself
on my collar by leaping into the air in the hope of catching a pigeon, he told me, “I actually find something attractive in
your mindless indomitability.” Back home, he described our walk as “moderately satisfactory” and, turning to me, added, “But
you will have to develop a
little tolerance towards strangers. They aren’t all intent on grievous bodily harm.” What worries me is that, when he finds
out I am only a dog, he will stop loving me.

I am only surprised that it has not happened before. This morning, as we were walking down Victoria Street, a young woman
with obviously dyed hair turned round and said to the Man, “Who do you think you’re talking to?” He was talking to me. But
I am so low on the ground that some people do not see me. Sometimes I feel like the invisible man.

It was what the Man had said to me that made the young lady particularly keen to know if he was talking to her. As I recall,
it went something like this, “For God’s sake, walk properly. If you wobble about all over the pavement, nobody can get past.”
The Man answered the young lady’s question by pointing at me. She went red, but said nothing.

The incident illustrates an important point. Being rude to me is regarded as funny If he said the same
things to other people—“Sit!… Lie down!… You’ll go out!”—he would be in terrible trouble.

He has been away He says he has been to Pakistan, but I do not believe him. If he had been abroad, he would still be in quarantine.
Although he tells me lies, I miss him when he is away Without him at home, there is no one for me to dominate.

I was on my evening walk when he got home. As soon as I got in, I could see him sitting in the study at the far end of the
hall, and She let me off the lead straight away. I ran to greet him in a spirit of joyous welcome. Although I say it myself,
I am a great jumper—four feet up in the air and ten feet along from a standing start. With the advantage of a run-up, I am
like a ballistic missile with fur and teeth. The need for physical contact was so strong that I could not waste a minute before
I started to chew his hand. I longed for the old, familiar voice saying, “For God’s sake stop it, Buster, or you’ll go out.”
So I took off from just outside the study door.

If the Man had not lost his nerve, everything would have been fine. But he held up his arm and tried to duck behind it. Instead
of my landing neatly on his knee—as I certainly would have done, had he not panicked—I bounced off his hand and ended in a
heap on the floor. A less agile dog would have been badly injured. Fortunately, I managed to twist in the air, so at least
I landed right side up. But as I flew through the air, my paw caught him a glancing blow on the cheek.

I have drawn blood for the first time in a year, and the damage was done—by mistake—to my best friend in all the world. I
think I am being corrupted by civilization.

Derbyshire is full of strange animals. Some of them are very small. When it rains very hard and water runs down the hill,
little green things jump up and down. I caught one in mid-air. It was cold and slimy. I spat it out straight away. Little
brown animals stick themselves to the wall at the bottom of the rockery. They smell quite nice, but when I got one in my mouth,
it
was hard on one side and wet and slimy on the other. I began to think all the little animals in Derbyshire are wet and slimy
somewhere. But they are not. There are small things that fly about which are hard to catch, but I was clever enough to get
one. It buzzed about inside my mouth, so I spat that out too.

Coming home last night, I smelt an animal next to the water trough where the Man tries to make me wash my feet when it is
muddy in the fields. I went to get a closer sniff and it pricked me on the nose. Every time I pushed it to make it stop, it
pricked me some more. I think it must have had prickles sticking out all over. The prickles made my nose bleed. The Man was
very unsympathetic. He said, “You were trying to roll that hedgehog over so you could kill it.” That was not true. But it
was a good idea. I shall know what to do next time.

Exile from St James’s Park has proved less of a punishment than I anticipated. I have not been there for a year and do not
miss it. I miss the geese, but I would
not mind never seeing a flamingo or a pelican ever again. Flamingos are a sickly pink color and pelicans have buckets where
their beaks ought to be. I can’t bear anything unnatural. Birds should be brown or black with, at very most, a touch of red
or silver on breast or wing. And they should have something sharp at the front of their faces. I now regret that I got a goose
instead of one of those weirdoes.