So I was out at my first lure coursing trial this weekend and came home to feel very sad/upset, like an outcast.
Does anyone have the answer to this question…..why do Bs not like whippets. The club I belong to is majority whippets (of course!), the first or second day I attended a practice with them Heix kind of snarled at one of the whippets. I gave him heck and they said "don't worry, Basenjis don't like whippets!"
This weekend at lure coursing every time someone walked by me and Helix with a whippet they were like, "no, leave it, that's a Basenji", "no you can't play, that's a Basenji", "oh I didn't know there was a Basenji laying there, otherwise I would not have let the puppy go over there,"..........every time, "NO THAT'S A BASENJI" (I'm glad people know their dog breeds!). No one wanted to sit with me and talk b/c Helix was with me. I felt like I had the black plaque or something. One moment in the afternoon one of the ladies standing in front of me talking w/ a couple other ladies, blurted out, "Basenjis are nasty creatures, they have the personality of a terrier!" :mad: Cow, did she not realize I was right there. She's a freak anyways. Everytime Helix looks, sneezes, walks, runs…etc up to her whippets, she literally hurls herself onto her whippets to protect them from the mean nasty Helix- screeches, "no, get away". No wonder there are no other Bs in the club except for mine and another ladies….everyone else in the city was shunned and did not come back! One whippet owner put it a little nicer, she said, "Basenjis have this bubble around them and nothing is allowed to penitrate the bubble, the bubble protects dog and owner! It was a cute way of putting it! But still...I just think someone had a bad experience between their whippet and a B and has now blown it all out of proportion. If you allow the behavior to happen, the issue will never resolve itself. A correction has to made for the bad behaviour! :rolleyes:
I also practice the same corrections as one of the other ladies on here mentioned...
If Helix approaches another dog and I see the hair on his back stand up, I immediately make him sit and wait- that is always my first indicator that he is not approaching friendly. This weekend he did good practicing that for the most part. He approached a whippet and an ibizhan hound, seen his hair stand up, made him sit, he gave them a little "hello" yodel and stayed sitting waiting patiently, hoping that they would come over to him to say hello but after 2min of him waiting, the owners would not let the dogs approach. The other thing I do too is to tell him to "leave it" and it could be anything.....dog, food, garbage, and pull the leash in towards me and he ignores it.
I just had to get that out b/c it really ticked me off. I understand they do not get along, but could they just simply say, "no, leave it". Rather than constantly reinforcing the obvious!
A little side note....if they were worried about their dogs getting hurt or eaten, I could have let our 12 year old B- Metinga- loose on them....she's the alpha and the scrapper in our family!!!!:D
Rhonda Sitter (mom of Helix and Metinga)