The “best Christmas commercial ever” by John Lewis, an English department store chain, had made him famous. Now Buster, the beloved Boxer dog filmed while having a great time jumping a trampoline, is gone. At the age of 12, the four-legged, whose real name was Biff, died in recent days: “Fly high, our beautiful special boy, we will miss you forever” wrote his owner Jan Patten on social media.
The commercial, released for Christmas 2016, told the story of a little girl named Bridget who loves to jump and her funny dog Buster. Set to a cover of “One Day I’ll Fly Away”, her mother and father buy her a trampoline and, while she sleeps, they work hard to build it before hiding it in the garden and surprising her on Christmas day.
As the snow falls on the evening of December 24, all the animals in the woods – including foxes, a badger, a squirrel and a hedgehog – start bouncing on the trampoline while the boxer watches disconsolately from the window. On Christmas morning, Bridget races out to use it for the first time, but her delight turns to surprise when the cheeky Buster outruns her and uses her new toy before she does. “Buster the Dog” was voted the best John Lewis commercial in a Radio Times poll earlier this month, garnering 24% of the overall vote.
“Biff was a much loved member of our family, and everyone who met him loved him too,” says Patten, from Daventry, UK. “His fame has given us the opportunity to raise funds for animal charities. patience of a saint. At home he was pure joy, he made us smile every day. I don’t know if you know this, but Boxers are known as the clowns of the canine world, and while Biff was professional at the right time, he never lost his ability to make us laugh. We will really miss him.”
