Basenji Puppy Pen

We once got a puppy with a 12 year old male (and an older female). For the first week the adults kept their distance from the girl pup, but within a couple of weeks my male and the pup were inseparable. She hung from his neck with those wicked teeth and he hardly ever growled at her, she was his little shadow and they adored each other. Adults will make terrible noise and flash fangs at the pups, especially at about 6 months when they are teenagers, but most pups ignore it all! Male dogs are usually very sweet and good with pups…females are, well, bitches.

When I first got Sugar, then Damisi, the neck biting was allowed to be a bit rough until about six, seven months old, the Shadow put them in their place. I've found they generally work it out and if it gets too rough, someone will retaliate, but without really hurting the other.

look like really nice pups. i'm smitten with that little tri. (course i need another tri like a whole in the head)

hihi Nice topic! Buana (bizi) Bu'tje Buaaaan Nina Naanie Banaantje Benina Chafuko (amani) Chaf(fie) Chif chaf chippie Chips Foekie Hailey ( Hello I love you <- thats her real name :S) Heelipeel Paneelie Heeltje Mutsie Koetje (translated: little cow) Spaiky our cat: Tjaik Loempia Zwartman (blackman) Paikypaik

Jiggypig, since you said your parents were okay with getting a dog - what kind of dog breed do they see having around the house? Are they willing to help take care of the dog (whatever kind it is)? We want to be supportive of you but we are only hearing your side of the story - not your parents' side. We're are not against you getting a dog - we're just concerned for you and what you may be in for and for the dog. Several of the folks here are/were involved in rescuing dogs and have seen what can happen when things don't go as planned. [and you have to remember you are only seeing our words here not us - sometimes words alone don't convey the entire message, facial expressions help convey mood when words dont' - so we're not judging you]

Okay, once again… I got started on an older post!!! Duh:confused:

Indy's Mom (RNasto) turned us on to Prarie and the dogs love it! I have been using Innova EVO but Zahra had been having a lot of problems with anal glands so the vet told me to change her food and add some pumpkin to see if that would help, so far so good and I like that you can switch the selection around without upsetting your dogs stomach, once they are use to one kind of the food they can eat all of them.

Pat, I've also been guiding them here and asking them to become members so they can learn a little more about Basenji's than they already know. Many people thinking of this breed think they are barkless, odorless, and are trainable! After reading a few threads they either come back and say no way, or show me where to go from here.

My dogs are: Old Legend's Chinese Peony, called "Peony" Old Legend's Dojo-Hoshi, called "Dojo" and the same as soulmate I was also allowed to choose both names.

This sounds like resource guarding. The eating fast is a sign of it, then when your husband grabbed Mick it just confirmed to him that someone was out to get his resources (the food). The link that Pat provided has a good discussion. I would really recommend getting the DVD The Language of Dogs, http://www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=DTB875P, it sounds like Mick gave a lot of signals that he was going to bite before the bite actually happened. Learning to read those signals will really help to prevent situations where Mick feels the need to escalate to biting. Some things you can do to prevent this situation in the future. If you are worried he is eating to fast, one recommendation I saw for slowing the pace a dog eats at is to put a tennis ball in their dish so they have to keep moving the ball out of the way to get to the food. You probably should also feed in the crate, so that he is less worried that any people around may take his food. You are going to need to work on the resource guarding, a good source of information is the book Mine, http://www.dogwise.com/itemdetails.cfm?ID=DTB740

Pet First Aid/CPR is usually offered by your local Red Cross. I took it a little over a year ago. It is well worth taking.

Lola used to eat way too fast & she would be very gassy & throw up often after eating. We got her a bowl similar to the brake fast bowl… don't know the name but same concept & we just picked it up at the local PetSmart. Very inexpensive ($7 maybe)... it has plastic dividers to slow her down. I love it & highly recommend it! It completely stopped the throwing up & combined with a change in diet also cut down on smelly gas.

@Andrew: Booger is FINALLY registered with his proper name. We've decided to use "Griffin" in our dogs' names as a reference to the half lion/half eagle mythical creatures. The Egyptians borrowed them from other civilizations & used them in art depicting hunting scenes. So Booger is now "Griffin's Pick of the Litter." Very nice choice…cute name. :)

Pat, thank you for this info. I had and lost a fanconis b…I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Please folks, its a bit of work and expense, but get signed up, get the blood work drawn and send it in. Also, some basenji shows have blood draws on the grounds, EBC did that last year or the year before...so check out your breed clubs and the dog shows in your area...

@mauigirl: I wanted to let you all know what I decided on. It's "Sulou's Tri the Good Life". It took quite the progression to get there. It had to go through "life of riley" to get the "good life" part. It was actually Susan's suggestion and was something I had thought about. And I was able to get "Tri" in there after all. It's kind of appropriate, we're always joking about what a hard life the dogs have, given that they seem to have sleep-a-thons oh, you know, every day!! But I'm pleased with it and couldn't have gotten there without your suggestions so thank you! Very cute name… I really like it

That whole site is of my all-time favorites. :)

My Sahara is a picky eater too, she likes her variety. She likes Merrick's dry, mixed with Merrick's wet but I give her different kinds of Merrick's. Like chicken, lamb, vension, turkey, she is sooooo spoiled I know as well. There are days she doesn't eat well at all, but I just leave it until she does. If she doesn't eat it by the end of the day I have to throw it out, which makes me mad b\c Merrick is NOT cheap. She has never been a big eater though so I try not to worry to much, she is slim and muscular and that's the way I think she should look, I don't want her over 25 lbs. which she weighs now. PERFECT!

We picked Jackpot up from Doggy Day care and he slept the entire way home (which was nice because he usually wines/cries when hes in his crate in the car). I brought him into the house and figured he be very hungry after playing all day….put his food in his crate...and he went in after it...but fell asleep before he started eating...yep, he was THAT tired! John and I were able to make dinner & eat on the couch with him sleeping in his crate without even bothering us. He's awake now and has had some dinner...but boy was he one tired puppy for the first hour or so when we got home (It was nice to be able to make and eat dinner in peace!) LOL

@jaclempner: He looks fine to me, too. Did I see a kitchen garbage can in your video? If so, I'm impressed. I have my kitchen garbage in the cabinet under the sink with a childproof latch on the door to keep my dogs out. Haha, yes, there's a garbage can in the kitchen, but Mirtillo is never alone in the kitchen… He does try to look in it and he turned it over once, but I was there just on time, so he couldn't enjoy the chicken.. :p

@Mia: wow I must be a bad mom I don't really have any recent pics, or not at least any good ones, so maybe I am just a bad photographer lol on that I will call you a baby mom, no new pics, you're fired LMAO j/k but that does bring up that we need new pics :D