• First Basenji's

    We have had Saavik for about two weeks now…Every night she a good 5-10 minutes lick fest on her butt and genital area...At first we thought she was just cleaning herself... but she gets very intense like it is bothering her...However, she acts fine the rest of the time... She eats and drinks plenty of water...Normal bowel movements and she isn't peeing more frequently or anything... She doesn't seem to have any inflammation or fishy smells.

    I'm just wondering if her behavior is normal and as a new pet owner maybe I'm overly worrying of if you guys think I should make her a vet appointment....


  • Sounds like a Basenji taking a bath! Does she only lick that area, or does she do a clean up on the rest of herself? I find my guy will work diligently on one area for awhile, then switch to somewhere else. If this is a once a day occurrence, I wouldn't be too concerned about it. If she is spending a lot of time throughout the day on this one area, that is a different story.

  • First Basenji's

    she does it usually in the evening after dinner and will later lick her paws and thighs….yesterday was her monthly does of revolution...so we thought maybe the medicine had worn off from last month and she was more susceptible to fleas etc...I thought I would keep an eye on her for the next few days and may take her to the vet next week if she gets worse or showed any true symptoms.


  • Sounds to me like pretty normal behavior. They rarely lick themselves when they have a UTI.. at least not that I have ever seen. If she is really after her butt, her anal glands could be full….

    How old is she?

  • First Basenji's

    Pat,
    She turned 2 in December… We rescued her from BRAT....She has had a bit of Dandruff and I thought I'd give her a bath with Oatmeal Shampoo tomorrow and see if that may help as well.

    I looked over your website, you have some of the best looking Basenji's I have ever seen!!!! kudos to you!


  • Thank you for your kind words… about the Tanza Kids

    You might want to check out and see if maybe her anal glands need to be expressed... other then that, I would say she is being normal...

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