The Traveler

Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: Lifestyles

Media Credit: Larry Ash

If you decide to spend some time on Dickson Street, you might expect to find shopping, restaurants and bars, but what you might not expect is Bugsy, the top dog of Dickson Street.

Bugsy spends most of his time guarding Flying Possum Leather, a store specializing in handcrafted acoustic and leather guitar straps, but he also makes social trips around Dickson with his owner, Bruce Walker.

Walker is the owner of Flying Possum Leather. He has been at the same location on Dickson for 33 years and has had a dog in the store for most of that time, he said.

Not all the dogs he's had were right for the shop, but Bugsy can be found there every day it is open, Walker said. Bugsy is 8 1/2 years old, and has been with Walker since he was a puppy, he said.

A friend of Walker's told him about Bugsy and brought him to meet Walker.

"It wasn't like he was my dog; I was his person right off the bat," Walker said.

Bugsy is named for Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, a notorious mobster from the 1920s to 1940s. Walker didn't have to name Bugsy - he just knew his name, he said.

"He just looked like a little mobster," he said.

Bugsy is everybody's buddy and everyone knows who he is, even if they don't know who Walker is, he said.

"He'll come right up to anybody; that's my favorite thing about him," said Tonya Olinger from Geno's Pizza. "He's super friendly."

Bugsy waits for Walker outside Geno's Pizza every morning when Walker stops in, but he can be seen everywhere, Olinger said.

"We always say, this is his street, he owns this street," Olinger said.

Bugsy does not need a leash. When he walks with his owner, he doesn't move unless Walker does, and he knows where the stopping points are. Bugsy does not go across the street without him, he said.

Before Bugsy was neutered, he was a "man about town," Walker said. He has actually been stolen or picked up a couple of times, but, fortunately, he has always been returned, Walker said.

Walker had two dogs previous to Bugsy that he kept in the shop; Little 'Un, who he had for 13 years, and May Bee, who was more than 10 years old when she died, he said.

"All my dogs I have had for long periods of time have been special, smart, intuitive and good with the public," Walker said. "Unless you are on the wrong side of the fence - and they know that."

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