The Bad…
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Chi Chi
Challenges the Fiancé
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Panic
at the Coffee House
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Aloof But Lovely Lulu
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Basenji Ten Commandments
I was a single mom of two boys and Basenji Chi Chi when I
began dating Thom. One weekend I had to go out of town and I asked Thom to care for Chi.
He agreed and I brought her to his condo. She sniffed every square inch of the place and I
warned him to cage her when he was at work. I returned to a hysterical story of Basenji
vs. Man. Man lost.
Thom had always loved golden Retrievers and was used to
a lap-, obedient-dog. He thought if he called Chi she would come and was
unprepared for her independent nature and speed.
One morning, while Chi was in his care, he opened the back sliding
door and she took off. Worried that if anything happened to my
sons′ pet, he would definitely lose favor with me, he took off running
after the her, still in his boxer shorts.
Chi would run, then slow down long enough for him to get close, then
take off again. (Although Thom runs every day and is in very good shape of course he couldn't catch her.)
By mid-morning Chi had run him into the ground. At one point Chi
stopped to “chat” with two elderly women taking a morning walk.
Thom yelled to the women to “grab that dog.” They held on to her and then commented
on how beautiful and “deer-like” they thought she was. Thom—not
feeling like talking about her beauty at this time, particularly in his
boxers—quickly took her home.
At home he opened the front door and tossed her in. Chi, being the smart thing
that she is, runs through the house immediately to the back sliding door
that Thom had left open and the chase was on again!
Needless to say, their relationship is now testy, at best.
Ours
however blossomed! When we married Thom said, “If I can handle that dog I can handle
anything from you and your sons!”
(I personally think Thom can't stand the fact that the dog outsmarted
him. She doesn't let him forget it either.)
I walked my two Basenjis to a coffee house a few blocks
from home. I wanted to go in and get coffee and then sit outside with them. I had them
both on Flexis so I slipped the handle of each under a heavy table leg. While I was inside the people at the next table
got up to leave. When they slid their heavy chairs back to stand up it made a horrendous
scraping noise, spooking my female.
The dogs managed to flip their table over and my spooked female took off at a
dead run down a busy city street, Flexi un-sprung, fully extended, and dragging behind her,
no doubt freaking her out even more. (The people, panicked, came running into the coffee house screaming at me that my dogs
were loose.) As I ran
outside I was fully prepared to go and pick her dead, smashed body up off the pavement.
All I could think was, I've just lost a dog.
The only thing that saved her, I'm sure, was the fully-extended
Flexi cord. As she started to cross the street the Flexi's cord got stuck
under the tire of a parked car and stopped her. Fortunately the Flexi strap was under
her front leg so it softened her sudden stop. (I was worried it
might have broken her neck!) She just had a terrible rope burn under her arm.
(My other dog, by the way, stayed put and a woman came to my aid and held onto him.)
Until you've seen it, you can't imagine how a really,
really spooked
basenji looks. Ears back, head up, eyes wild. It's hard, if not impossible, to recall a
dog in this state.
Jackie Kuhwarth
Sacramento, CA
Basenjis are not an off-leash dog. And, if Basenjis aren't exercised
the only option is constant stimulation to keep them from finding their own amusements (my
underwear, the pillows, the blinds, the contents of the trash, the cat, whatever—definitely
not what you'd like them to be busy with, viz. their toys).
I always worry about people who list short hair and no bark as
appealing qualities. Basenjis are pretty high maintenance, despite their low maintenance
look.
Some people say the dog must not be destructive. Well, I wouldn't call Lulu
destructive but she is an energetic and enthusiastic chewer. She has eaten several hundred
dollars worth of clothing, removed our vertical blinds in the dining room—ok, I agree, they
needed to be replaced with something else—destroyed every $14.00 plush toy we gave her
in minutes (we must be slow learners), and decided that tassels do not belong on pillows—again, she may be right
on this point.
Lulu is of course one Basenji among many.
On an aloofness continuum from 1-10, 1 being the most aloof, she hovers at .5 (yes,
that's point-five), except at dog parks and lure courses where she's a total
extrovert. She is affectionate in her own way but no where near the expressiveness of a
Pug or Border Collie. She has her own agenda. People are a low priority. Potential
Basenji
owners need to know this is a possible character trait or the match will be a disaster.
Of course there is a range of Basenji personalities. The
Basenjis I've known all tend
to be intense. And they are focused. Even at their most playful they aren't anything like the
hyper-active Jack Russell. But their intensity seems cooler than that of European hunting
hounds—nothing like a German Short Haired Pointer, or a Vizsla. Basenjis are explosive
and strong but don't seem as emotionally fragile as Boxers.
Still, they certainly aren't
couch potatoes.
Eunice Ockerman
Sunnyvale, CA
1) Hide and lock up securely any garbage receptacles of any kind. This
especially includes bathroom garbage containers. Even though you may plan to
keep your
dog out of that area, they will find a way to get to it.
2) Purchase the highest quality child safety locks you can find for
cabinets that contain any kind of food product or cleaning supplies that might be
interesting or used as shredding material (like dryer sheets or paper towels). If you
don't have young children, prepare an explanation for your friends as to why all of your
cabinets have these difficult-to-open mechanisms. Be aware that your Basenji may figure
out how to open these latches so be on the look-out for a new and more difficult type that
you can switch to in case this happens.
3) Never leave food on the counter! No matter how high your counters or how short a
time you'll be away from the food, a Basenji will find a way to get to it. My dogs
have eaten many a peanut butter sandwich that I've left for “just a second”.
(They′ve also opened the top kitchen cabinets in our camper to reach cookies that were
left inside.)
4) Plan and practice a family routine of escape-prevention. If something is attracting
a Basenji outside the house or yard (like squirrels or a neighbor dog) they will most
likely find a way to get out of the yard to go “exploring”. (To
“train” your Basenji to fear “losing” you try taking your pup to a
safe area when it is very young and hide from it. This may instill just enough anxiety in
the dog to keep it from straying too far from you.)
5) Do not plan to reprimand your Basenji to discourage a given behavior. Although some
dogs are effected by reprimands (i.e. they look forlorn for some time after) the Basenji is
undaunted by such action—a canine sociopath of sorts—and the unwanted behavior will most likely continue.
6) Don′t plan on talking on the phone in peace in the presence of a Basenji unless the
dog is thoroughly exercised, asleep or crated in another room. I haven't met a Basenji yet
who could tolerate their owner talking on the phone. Plan on purchasing a portable phone
if at all possible to discourage the perception that you're “unavailable” while
on the phone.
7) Expect your dogs to chase anything that runs. These are hunting dogs by instinct.
This includes cats, other dogs, children, wild animals, etc. Even if your dog is
socialized around cats and tolerates them, I believe that a Basenji and a
cat that live together have a one-sided agreement: The cat agrees not to run away from the dog, but
instead to stand its ground or to head for high ground when appropriate.
8) If there is something that you′re trying to discourage your dogs from doing set up
strategic “booby traps” that surprise them into thinking that the reaction to
their behavior will be unpredictable. (For example, my dogs took to getting in the shower
after I got out to lick the water off the bottom. This usually left doggy foot prints on
the bottom and I worried about danger to them if I used a cleaning product that weren't
100% gone. The solution was easy: I would sneak in and turn the shower on them. And since
Basenjis hate water, well, that solved that problem. All other forms of behavior
modification had failed.)
9) Plan on integrating your dog into all parts of your life. Make friends with people
that have dogs, so your dogs have “friends”. Plan weekend outings that include
your dog. Your life will be much more fulfilling and enriched if you integrate the dog
into it instead of trying to “cope” with the dog as part of our life.
10) Plan on falling madly in love with your dog and being completely blind to what
other non-Basenji owners think are shocking behaviors. I think that most humans are
attracted to those that play hard-to-get and most Basenjis know that game well <grin>.
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