Somebody recently made a comment to me, about Tana's vocalizations that just has me a bit curious. Just a silly question, really. Wanting to get some input from more experienced Basenji folks!
Ever since we adopted her (nearly 4 years ago!) she's been a VERY quiet Basenji…which I know is normal & fairly common, in & of itself. She's never yodeled, and while she has the normal range of other Basenji sounds, it's all pretty "muted". I've NEVER heard a "loud" noise come out of her mouth.
When she does "try" to make a loud noise- even a "pain scream"....she's high pitched and very "hoarse", so you really only hear the first part of the vocalization and then she sounds like somebody with laryngitis trying for a high-pitched scream. She's vocalizing but hardly any noise is coming out. It usually happens a couple times in the winter- she'll go out in the yard, get carried away running after the other dogs, and halfway back to the house she decides her feet are too cold, so she sits down & screams until I come get her. (dog boots were a try & fail attempt of course, LOL)
This exact scenario happened recently, and an acquaintance of mine (NOT familiar with Basenjis) made the offhand comment, "She sounds like a de-barked dog." I said "no" & explained what a Basenji was, yadda yadda, etc.
But the comment got me thinking, especially when I thought about Jibini's vocalizations....which can be nothing short of ear-splitting and horrifying, LOL. For example, I boarded Jibini with a 40+ year veteran hunting dog breeder last year. He came into the kennel one night, heard Jibini vocalizing, and thought for a minute he had a MOUNTAIN LION in his kennel, until he remembered "the weird dog" and his noises, LOL.
Basically I'm just curious to see how many other Basenjis have this type of "quiet" vocal range? How common (or not) is it? I'm pretty darn sure she wasn't "debarked"....she did come from a puppymill, but even puppymillers can't be dumb enough to debark barkless dogs, I hope! LOL.
Hate to be the one to break this news, but people will "de-bark" a Basenji due to the screaming… Not often that I hear of one, but I have.... so maybe whoever had her before you may have?
That said, my Maggii was very quiet. But when she did "talk" it was very loud!!!!
Oh yes - the screaming.
These dogs are "barkless" because of a diffence in the vocal cords but that doesn't mean noiseless so I can imagine if the screaming sounds were too much someone could debark a dog.
This is true, but all of the debarked dogs I've seen (granted, not many) still vocalized quite a bit, it was just in a "whisper". They still retained the noisy behavior.
Tana is quiet by nature….not much gets her to vocalize, really. Would debarking ever traumatize a dog to the point of completely changing their noisy behavior pattern??
The level of sound on a "debark" can range from a whisper to pretty loud, depends on the Vet that does the debark and how good he/she is….
