New basenji owner to Milo, 6 months old. He is outdoor/indoor dog and we found him going to town on a bird. Is this normal? And what anout chasing rabbits?
Totally normal! I've heard of a B jumping in the air to catch birds as they pass by and succeeding. B's have a very high prey drive anything that catches their interest they chase. Mine chase squirrels here.
Birds? Oh my yes - my female catches them just as they begin their takeoff from the ground!
Rabbits? Mine have all learned to corner these and then …
Chipmunks? Yes indeed.
Muskrats,
Mice,
etc
Absolutely wizard, birds, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, I've even known a few to take on possums and raccoons. Egads! Tough little buggers, aren't they?
My previous basenji killed several wild birds (much to my dismay) and I would not have been surprised if he attempted to kill pet ones. I have a friend who raises parrots and some of them are so large that I think they could do more damage to a B than the other way around!
Great article thanks!!! Will look into other books by Bradshaw. I have since finished it and thought it was great. There's some basenji info in there'd too. I pretty much agree with everything he says… And I though it was very entertaining!!
My 15 year old Lab wants to devour my sons parakeet. He went after the lovebirds too when we had them. My mom has a ****zu that ate 3 of her love birds. The cats never had a problem with the birds. They'd walk around the house with birds on their backs like it was no big deal. The Macaw I used to have was a different story. He wanted to eat the cats, but didn't mind the dog even though the dog was scared ****tless of him.
Yes I agree Pat, Fort Funston could get very crowded and dangerous for smaller dogs as packs of bigger dogs playing could cause injury. My 2 Basenjis were very good and stayed pretty close to me and got used to the crowds. The only problem I had there was with this lady who had an older Tri color female Basenji. It would bite my blk/wht, Nika who was 1-1/2 on the butt. A few times of that and I stayed way away from her. The problem is Nika was a very playful girl and never did anything like that. A few times of getting nipped on the butt started her doing it to other dogs and Basenjis. A Basenji would want to play and Nika would chase and give a nip and the the other dog would get mad and a fight would occur. Nobody would ever get hurt thankfully. It was rare that it would happen as I took them there for 9 years, mostly on the weekend without problem. We had a lot of fun and people loved the Basenjis! Ringo, the red/wht was a very entertaining clown when we'd go down to the beach.
