My goal with her is to have her evenutuall follow hand commands as our other dog does ( She was trainedwhen we got her). Its good to see that can be done with this breed. Thankyou for all the sugestions, I will try them out and see what works for her.

@ComicDom1:

MacPack, thanks for the info on the walky dog. I watched both movies where they are riding the bike and the dog is attached. While I would like to try something like this with my Basenji, I am somewhat nervous because I fear either my Basenji or I will get hurt if the dog just stops dead in his tracks, sees prey and decides to try to bolt and take off after it, or sees something else he wants and either bolts forward or sideways.

Do you have any personal experience using this Walky-Dog attachment?

Thanks,
Jason

I haven't used this attachment, but still run Ruby on the bike. The reason you won't lose your balance with the Walky Dog is because it is attached to the seatpost - your center of gravity. Put it on the handle bar stem and that would be a different story. The other key thing is with the Walky Dog (and the way I run Ruby) is that they can't get to the wheels of the bike.

Honestly when I run Ruby, I don't feel like she is even attached to the bike - there is no pulling. The one thing I found when running Ruby is that even if there is prey that she might be interested in, she is moving forward and in a manner that doesn't allow freedom to go in another direction. I've encountered rabbits, squirrels, deer and cats and never had her try to chase off to the side. If they are in front of her, she will pick up speed, so I try to match her speed. She's looked at them, then looked at me and all I've said is "keep going or forget it" and there has never been a problem. Mostly she is looking ahead and having a blast running.

We run a steady pace on the flats of about 14 - 16mph (11mph up hill - great for her, but it nearly kills me :eek:)…I'm sure she could go faster, but we go about 4 - 6 miles so I don't want to completely wipe her out.

You want to tire out a basenji - a bike is a great tool!

@agilebasenji:

FYI - tea tree oil is great, however it is toxic to cat, so if you have cats, you may want to rethink (or at least not put it on the cat)

Good to know about the cats…thank you we do have 2.

Have you tried to contact anyone in the Tucson Kennel Club?
http://www.azdogs.com/tkc/
They don't have much of a website, but do have email addys for the President and Secretary. There are likely other kennel clubs in the area also

@ComicDom1:

Kelli, Miranda and I are interested in Lure Coursing also. We are located in IL so we will be looking here and in the surrounding states for events.

ComicDom1
Jason

If you are not far from the WI border, the BCOSW club is having a coursing fundraising event at Lurecoursing Fanatics on May 9th in Somers, WI. It's fenced in and it's just for fun and open to any breed. $5 for one run, $8 for two. I'm bringing Zoni so she can do a puppy run or two. The info for the ASFA field trial in Belvidere, IL is also on the BCOSW website.

http://www.bcosw.org/ (go to the events page)

Sorry for the delayed thank you, but I've been out the country for the last week. Thanks everyone for the detailed answers. I really like several of the approaches like the non-typical release word and the use of "stay" versus "wait" and "come" versus "here" depending on the formality of the situation. I'm really looking forward to training Zoni and applying all of the different techniques. Hopefully she likes it.

Glad things seem to be working out okay now.

Piggy only has problems pooping when she gets panicky too. For example if we leave her home in a crate and someone comes in the house but doesn't come down to see her or let her out she will do it. We can't put anything in her crate or she shreds it, we tried everything. For a while I was even buying fleece baby blankets at the dollar store and tossing them if she pooped. We gave up on that after a while. The mess was terrible, so I can relate to hours of cleanup… by the time you get her cleaned up and the crate.

We did some desensitizing and left for short periods like I described before, and that helped a lot. My friend that has a B went to the vet about her anxiety, hers would cry incessantly, and they actually gave her meds, prozac I think, for it. I think she tried it, but didn't think it worked enough to do it. Sounded crazy to me.

It hasn't happened in a while so we have been lucky. She has come to terms with her crate now and will once in a while go hang out in it by choice, so I know she doesn't hate it.

Have you tried one of those snuggle buddy things? I wonder if you could find some way to protect it if Darwin had an accident.

Best of luck and lots of patience!

@SNA:

I tried a head halter ages ago, for at least 3 weeks, but she just hated it. She kept trying to get it off, even after three weeks, and I just couldn't do it to her anymore.
A couple of books I'm following at the moment say that head halters suppress rather than correct the behaviour.
She's doing well now.

Well, both the head halter, and the chest harness suppress the pulling behavior. You have to train the desired behavior at the same time. The idea is that you have to stop them from pulling, or else you can't make any progress training the correct behavior. Pulling is a self rewarding behavior; in their minds, they pull, and it makes them get to where they want to be. You have to stop that association, and retrain them that when the leash is loose you get to go where you want to be. Neither walking aide can do that, only the training.

call around and see if you can take a performance puppy class or a pre-agility class. you don't want to do jumps at this age, but you can do all sorts of flat work and obedience type stuff. However, unlike in obedience, you will need your dog to work on your left and RIGHT side. So practice that if you decide to do an OB class (even if you have to work the dog on your right side away from class). I remember when I first started agility classes (with Digital who is now 12 so this was 11 years ago!) and having him on my right side was sooooo awkward! now i feel comfortable with either side.

ALSO (very important!!!!) PLAY with your dog. Use toys, you will want toy drive!!! And puppies have lots of toy drive, but it tends to fade with these dogs as they age.

Practice training, training anything. Tricks, targetting, there are lots of good agility and clicker websites out there.
Good luck and keep us posted.

Here's Zest doing some 'gility when she was a puppy:

My other pups doing agility can be seen here:
http://community.webshots.com/user/mbtihansky

@Shaye's:

Not to be indelicate, but you can also watch the dog carefully for when he's starting to circle and, their little butts kind of pooch out when they are ready to poop. Watching for that was a godsend for us when we were training Shaye.

Yup. Very good point here. I noticed this as well.

CarolAnn Worsham uses plastic drainage pipe I think at the top and bottom of her chain link fence to deter the jumpers, climbers, and diggers. 🙂

@Buana:

YEAHHHH Congrats Tillo and Janneke!!!!!
What a great result!!!!

(i wanted to do that also, we only take puppy cause it doesn't work with our sailing days… :()

When is the specialty??
Maybe we can go too!!!!!
We are very often in Germany and always wanted to walk a german show!!!:D

Thank you! 🙂
The speciality is.. I guess.. August 29.. You can find it on the site of the German Basenji Klub: http://www.basenji-klub.org/. I believe it's under "termine"..

Well this thread is a couple years old, but I figure I'll chime in anyways in case anyone wants info, and since I was "paged". 🙂

Yes, we do straight and oval racing (and Lenny too) and it's a blast. Probably my absolute favorite thing to do with the Basenjis, and we do it all. lol The dogs are out there having so much fun doing what they were born to do, and you can hoot and holler for your kids like if you were at a sporting event and cheer them on. There's lots of comraderie between the people and the atmosphere is so relaxing. It's about as objective as it gets, no politics from questionable judging, etc. Just simply who crossed the finish line first. 🙂

Jys1011, did you ever get your kids involved in racing? One of my boys now lives in NJ and he has done some amazing things on the track. He is basically undefeated and his owner has worked hard doing all kinds of things to help him be #1. And he's having the time of his life! I know there are several race meets in NJ and the surrounding areas each year, and I bet Kathryn would be happy to help you learn the ropes.

If you want to find out more about the races, you can go to the websites for the organizations and they have calendars of upcoming events that list dates and locations. Also they list clubs and contacts, so I woul contact the nearest club or two and they will give you an idea of when local meets are as well as potential practices or other club activities.

LGRA is the straight racing organization, their website is lgra.org
Click on "calendar", then on "PDF calendar" after that, in the left column. This will tell you the race dates and locations so you can do some map googling to find out what's feasable for you to attend. Practices are much more plenty and inviting at race meets vs lure trials. Plus the lure is a bit more "exciting" usually for the dogs. So it's a great place to learn no matter which lure activity you plan to do.

NOTRA is for oval track, their site is notra.org
Click on "racedates"

I'd be happy to help further if you would like more running details.

Sharron are you going? Thinking about it myself.

@seko:

The afghan won over Uku (b/w) and over Valhi (r/w) she got a fright at the begining at the hairy giant dog behind her, stopped for a bit then ran again really well untill the afghan decided to play with her and she couldn't finish properly; the afghan didn't even get disqualified for annoying my dog and got better note :mad:

That doesn't sound very fair:mad:

Oh! the balcony has wall, she cant go out there in any way, just jumping, but she cant jump so tall. At least for now.

I ll put some special toys.. thanks.

Gossy does this too. My trainer suggested a plastic mat called "scat mat" (available from PetSmart). It is battery powered and gives a very very very minimal shock - equivalent to static electricity. Gossy stopped jumping on the table after only two days. Be sure to cover the battery box with something so your dog doesn't try to eat it.

Lovely photos…thanks for sharing. What an action dog you have!!!!!!!

It is very, very diffcult to "retrain" to go outside when/after they are paper trained… it takes loads of time and work... and not till you can totally remove the paper, IMO will it be a success. Till them, as Janneke suggests, get used to her going in the house.. and seeking paper to use