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How do I get my basenji to talk???

Basenji Talk
  • My 2 1/2 year old r/w Shaye hardly ever makes noise - whines and mutters when we leave a dog park, and twice has copied her "sister's" bark - (Gemma is a mix and barks a LOT, also talks and yodels), but it didn't sound the same. One time she baroo'd when we came home from a long afternoon, but never repeated it. Because we keep telling Gemma to be quiet, sometimes Shaye looks at her as if to ask "What's wrong with you?!?" so maybe she has decided making noise is a bad thing. No matter - noise or no noise they can communicate very well.

  • Get a cheap Harmonica and try that or go to youtube and look for Basenji singing-turn up the volume and see what happens.

  • @2baroos:

    Get a cheap Harmonica and try that or go to youtube and look for Basenji singing-turn up the volume and see what happens.

    hello 2baroos - welcome to the forum! I see you are from BC - anywhere in the lower mainland?

  • I used to live in Vancouver and now live in Courtenay

  • i got my boy to "sing " by mistake…..lol. i was going through a web site called singing dogs ( basenji) and turned it up loud and guess what it got my boy singing along with the dog on line.... what a noise but worth it..

  • The two males I had previously never ever made a sound. My current female never has yodeled but she does "talk" back to me when I scold her and she "cries" like a tasmanian devil when in the car-kennel. My new male yodels every now and then but I haven't figured out what sets him off.

  • LOL, so I am on the way to the vet for Arwen's 3 mo teeth cleaning. First, understand she is very silent most the time, none of the usual basenji noises other than screams and demon noised. So suddenly she is talking a LOT (not normal basenji noises but something I had never heard her do). I am SOOOO excited, I am praising, reaching back patting her. She gets louder, longer and more excited.

    I get more excited. I am all but exploding happy. I am mad my phone doesn't have a video.

    Finally, she quits and I suddenly get it. She wasn't talking. She was screaming "HEY PULL THE HELL OVER I GOTTA POOP NOW!" So deciding i hadn't a clue, she did. Thank goodness I had a sheet on the back seat and a huge shopping bag in the trunk. I pulled over, let her out, pulled out the poopy sheet and put it in the bag, tied it up (and threw out when I got home). So much for Arwen talking.

  • oh how lucky you are… would love to hear her...

  • haaaaha i just re read your letter and realised what you meant !!!!!

  • My boy yodels when I say "I loooooovveee yooooooouuuuuuu" :D

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  • How did you get your basenji to walk off leash?

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    @eeeefarm said in How did you get your basenji to walk off leash?: What I find interesting is the change in attitude to dogs on leashes. At that time, many people walked their dogs off leash, and many left them loose on their properties all day long. First, and probably foremost, you're a excellent owner. We disagree on a lot of training things (like e-collars) but you are uber responsible. On the "in the old days"... I see parents talk about not how they roved the neighborhood or all over small towns and how safe. But I also worked with women over the age of 70 who had been sexually assaulted as children and never reported it. I am not sure kids were massively safer in the good old days except for the fact that back then, your neighbors DID look after your kids... they'd scold them or call you without being fearful of being called meddling... because it was about caring. We've lost that. As for dogs, yep... we're similar aged and I remember my grandmother's farm and the fairly steady stream of new farm dogs because they got killed by wild life/snakes etc or roving dogs. It was business as usual. Dog disappeared or dead-- get another one. I know many still feel that way. Rather have to dogs run free and happy and dead young than "cooped up." Our value for dogs as companions has dramatically changed, and our view of our responsibility for them. We always had cats and dogs who were allowed out, and like you, most stayed on the property. But I remember 3 dogs who didn't (one small, probably stolen) and cats didn't live long. We just took that as the norm. Obviously I have look back at that and am horrified. (Though there was an Irish setter who would NOT stay on his property and if the owners weren't there, he followed me about a mile to my house when I walked home from school. His owners laughed, would come get him when they got home if he didn't go back. I thought that was kewl back then but not so much then.) But my experience, and I lived in a very small town then, and a smallish one now, is very different. Then and now, dead dogs and cats on the road are incredibly common. The litmus test is research statistics. Cats who are even allowed out a few hours a day loose have dramatically decreased life spans. I haven't bothered to look about dogs, though a look at shelters should be enough to prove that dogs loose are often dogs lost. The number with electric fence collars demonstrates how ineffective even that is if prey drive kicks in. (for the record, your dog your choice. Loose cats however have an almost unimaginable impact on wildlife, so it IS my business if your cat runs loose.) Yep, times have definitely changed.
  • When to get another Basenji

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