Buster's Diaries: The True Story of a Dog and His Man (5 page)

The newspapers found out about the goose. The Man thinks a gardener was given a biscuit for telling them. This morning there
were photographers waiting for us when we went for our walk. We sat on a park bench whilst they took our picture. I was the
star, gazing up at him like Man’s Best Friend and licking his face. The
Evening Standard
had a billboard, “Park Murder Suspect: First Pictures.”

Most of the reports were lies. Some said I had bitten the goose’s head off. Others said it lay eviscerated on the path. The
Man explained that the newspapers had to invent better stories than the truth—a little nip isn’t news, but horrible mutilation
is. And I’m supposed to be the one with the wolf inside me!

I have become very famous. This morning people stopped us in the street and told him not to thrash me or have me shot. Dog
owners sent bones through the post. There were cartoons in the
Guardian
and the
Daily Telegraph. A
dachshund called Lottie telephoned to propose marriage. He wrote back to say I was too young. People we did not know made
jokes. The Man got bored with the jokes very quickly—particularly
“Has he killed a goose today?” and “Still catching your supper, is he?” I loved them. We met the police officer in the street
and he said he was sure we would hear no more about the dead goose. He was wrong.

I am getting letters from all over the country. Some are from humans pretending to be dogs and some are from humans admitting
to be humans. The letters which are signed by dogs all say that I was right and the goose was wrong. The letters which are
signed by humans all tell the Man that he must be kind to me and not have me shot.

The Man is going to reply to everyone. He has written one letter for the dogs and another for the humans and has spent all
afternoon trying to decide who should get which letter. As soon as he had posted the first batch, he realized he had made
a terrible mistake. Lulu is a House of Commons secretary not a Pekinese. I think Countess Beatrice de Villiers of Compton
Basset is probably a pedigree German shepherd dog and not an English aristocrat.

A solicitor has written to us about the Dangerous Dogs Act. The letter says that one day a policeman will come round and say,
“Buster is a pit bull terrier type.” He will then take me away and shoot me. The solicitor sent a picture of a pit bull terrier
which looks nothing like me but the Man keeps holding it up and making me stand still so that he can write down all the differences
to tell the policeman when he comes round with his gun.

He has also measured me, because pit bull terriers are twenty inches from the ground to their shoulder. I am only nineteen.
He keeps asking if I am likely to grow. I hope this does not mean he will try to stunt my growth by cutting down on biscuits.

He says, “If the worst comes to the worst, we will go and live in Ireland to escape from the police.” He has promised we will
go by boat so that I do not have to be in a box with the luggage. When he talks about going to Ireland, She always says, “Don’t
be stupid.” What I can’t work out is why it is wrong to kill a goose, but all right to shoot a dog.

Whatever happens later in the day, we are now inseparable during the morning walk. I am never let off the lead. We walk to
the park connected by the short lead. The short lead is attached to me by a noose in which I strangle myself by trying to
walk faster than he is able to go. The Man says, “Walk properly,” and tells people that I will soon learn. I doubt it.

Notices have been nailed to St James’s Park railings. They say, “To protect the wildlife, dogs must be on leads.” The Man
is very angry He says they were nailed there after the goose attacked me. When he told me about them, I knew at once that
they were a waste of public money. Dogs cannot read. Nor can they fasten themselves to leads. Or let themselves off. I am
now on the long lead for all the time we spend in St James’s Park. It is not as bad as you might think.

As soon as we get into the park, the Man puts on the long lead, clipping it to my collar and—just to make sure that I don’t
escape—also fastening it round my neck. This takes a long time because he is very clumsy and has a lot of things to hold in
his hands, including the short lead on which we came to the park.
Getting the short lead off is very difficult because he usually puts the long lead on top, rather than underneath. When the
long lead is on and the short lead off, the fun really begins.

The long lead expands. I can run twenty yards before it starts to tug at my windpipe. When I run back towards him, the string
disappears into a little box which is attached to the handle.

I run off as quickly as I can, accelerating with every step. Suddenly the expanding lead will expand no more. The immediate
choking sensation is really rather exciting, but I have usually recovered from the blackout in time to hear the Man shout
from twenty feet behind me. He knows how the expanding lead works. He bought it. But he is never ready for the moment when
it is played out to its full length. As a result, his shoulder is almost pulled out of its socket.

I would still rather run about without a lead at all. That goose has a lot to answer for. Because I am bound to him, he is
bound to me and we are both prisoners. I doubt if the goose would have understood. It did not look much of a philosopher.

Another totally boring day The Man says he has a book to finish, and therefore there is no wrestling on the sofa, no chasing
the rubber bone down the hall, and certainly no leaping on his knee. The Man sits at what he calls a desk—a big wooden cube
with a hole in one side into which he puts his feet and legs. He likes me to sit inside the hole with my chin on his feet.
This enables him to tell people how affectionate I am. Unfortunately I can only remain affectionate for about twenty minutes
at a time. Then I try to jump on his knee. But because I am in the hole inside the wooden cube, I always hit my head on the
wood. If he was affectionate towards me, he would say, “Poor old Buster,” and give me a biscuit. But he always says, “Don’t
be a nuisance, Buster. I am trying to work.”

I was left alone between half past seven and nine o’clock. It is the third time this week. I did not enjoy living at the dogs”
home, but at least I was never left to
worry if I had been abandoned for ever. When they went out, the only light they left on was in the kitchen, and all the other
doors were closed. At first I thought that I had three choices of entertainment, walking about in the dark, lying in my bed
or drinking water. Then I noticed that a corner of the front hall carpet was loose.

At first, I only meant to give it a little tug. But it came loose from its tacks with a very satisfying noise. So I kept tugging
until half the carpet had come away from the floor. There was another hairy sort of carpet underneath and, although it was
full of dust and made me sneeze, I pulled that up as well.

Although I do not claim to be an authority on these matters, I thought what I found under the two carpets looked far nicer
than either of the carpets themselves. It was not floorboard, but tiles with shiny patterns on them. I could become a really
first-class interior designer.

Staying in hotels is usually great fun. When the Man takes my bed it is not as much fun as when he leaves it
at home. With the bed, once I go to sleep, it is not very different from being at home. But when he does not take it, I sleep
on his bedspread, folded up and put on the floor in front of the window. When I sleep on the folded bedspread I always wake
up at least twice and jump on him. That is the best part, especially when he wakes up with a shout.

She always shouts and pushes me off. But the Man says, “You can’t blame him. He doesn’t like sleeping on the bedspread. It’s
my fault for forgetting his bed.” I wonder how long it will take before he understands that sleeping in the bed is boring.
In the morning—even though I have woken him up twice—all he worries about is the bedspread. Before they bring his tea, he
always says, “Quick, Bus, let’s straighten out the bedspread before they find out.”

Staying in the hotel in Ashford was even greater fun than usual. The owner told the Man, “There’s a feral cat as big as a
sheep upstairs,” and said it would kill me if it caught me. The Man asked how a cat could be feral if it lived in a hotel
and the hotel owner said it used to be feral but had been tamed. I wanted to ask how tame it was, if it wanted to kill me.

I was asleep when the hotel owner came with the tea, but I quickly woke up. Because he walked in without knocking, there was
no chance to tie me up. To me one cat is very like another—feral or not. So off I went up the stairs. “My God!” the hotel,
owner said. “The cat’s up there.”

The hotel owner just stood there, but the Man ran up the stairs after me. He does not run up stairs very fast. Before he got
halfway up, I was back on the top step with the famous feral cat in my mouth. It was not as big as a sheep. The Man began
to hit me with the lead. He also shouted, “Drop it.” I did not drop it. He tried to prize my mouth open like he does when
I pick up old bits of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I did not open my mouth. He then started to strangle me by twisting my collar.
When I could not breathe I opened my mouth. Unfortunately the feral cat fell out. The man who owns the hotel picked it up,
wrapped it in a towel and took it to the vet. Afterwards the Man told me, “I don’t mind the vet’s bill. I’m just sorry for
the cat. You wouldn’t understand that.” He was right.

We have been to a new park. It is called Green Park. It is not as pretty as St James’s Park and not looked after so carefully.
And it is not so much fun. There are no geese or ducks. Steve went with us. Steve comes from the Blue Cross and gives me private
tuition. He knows how to look after dogs. All Steve’s ideas about catching dogs are very sensible.

Steve said that when the Man catches me, he must never be angry It is no good hitting me because he will never hit me hard
enough for it to hurt. I shall always think he is playing a game. The Man looked guilty and said, “I’ve never even thought
of hitting him.” I am sure he has thought about it, though he has never done it. I cringed as though I am regularly beaten
and let my tail droop between my legs—just to make him look more guilty.

Steve says I have no memory for events or incidents and that if I run away he must not shout at me when I come back. If he
does, I shall think he is shouting because I have come back, not because I ran away. “The best thing to do,” Steve said, “is
to give him a biscuit.” I like Steve.

I now have a lot of friends. We meet every morning in the park. One of them is called Sandy—a real mongrel, not a first cross
like I am. He carries a rubber ring in his mouth wherever he goes and will not drop it even to eat a biscuit, until he gets
into a special part of the park. Then his owner throws it in the air for him, and he jumps as high as he can and catches it.
There is also Henry, who is a cocker spaniel. The Man says, “You can tell he is a gentleman by his name.” Henry has a piece
of rope dangling from his collar so he can be caught when he runs away. That is a funny way to treat a gentleman. Lenny and
Cliquot are little white Highland terriers. When the Man calls them Scotties, the ladies who own them always correct him.
I cannot tell which is which. But I can always identify the lady who comes to the park with Lenny. She has a bag full of biscuits.
Lenny won’t eat them, so she gives them to me.

The Man tells her to stop and says he is ashamed of the way I sit down and wait to be fed. “You’d think we don’t feed him,”
he says to the other people in the park. Then he shouts to me, “Run! You’ve come here to
run, not to sit down.” At other times he wants me to stop running and sit down. It is not surprising that I do not always
do as I am told.

When we got to the park this morning, there was a new dog there called Silky. She was beautiful, and we ran about together
away from all the other dogs. She is called Silky because she has silky hair, and we took it in turns to roll on our backs
while the other one pretended to bite. I think I am in love for the first time. Silky’s owner does not carry biscuits in his
pockets. If he did, I think Silky and I might develop a permanent relationship.

Today there was a real incident in the park. It was not my fault. The Man wasn’t to blame, either. However, he was not concentrating
on me as carefully as he should. He kept talking to me about the soccer game that he was going to watch that afternoon—England
against Holland. The price of Buster is eternal vigilance.

Even though we were in Green Park, he did not let
me off the lead because there were horses trotting about on the paths. I think they should be prohibited like bicycles. Perhaps
they have been, but, because bicycles take no notice, horses take no notice either.

The Man said that it was the Queen’s Official Birthday and that dozens of horses would soon gallop past the park. So we had
to hurry home before they came. At one side of the park three Labradors were sniffing about on a piece of grass which was
roped off. Naturally I wanted to run towards them, jump up and knock them over and roll about. He has learnt nothing from
the morning when I defended myself against the goose. He dropped the lead again when he was getting the plastic bag out of
his pocket. So off I ran.

When I was about a foot away from one of the Labradors, the person on the end of its lead kicked me. It did not hurt, so I
had another sniff. He kicked me again and I fell over. By then the Man had caught me up. He asked, “Are you a police officer?”
and started to shout, “You kicked my dog.” The police officer admitted both accusations and said, “It costs six thousand pounds
to train these sniffer dogs.” The Man shouted, “Give me your number.”