Hi Danielle,
I agree with you on every level. However, I think the key to the basenji being a hunter in the US and maintaining high end traits is going to have to come from outside the basenji community. I have not been in the B community for very long but I have met a lot of people here. And though most are supportive and like to hear about my hunters, there are maybe 6 of us that I know of that are fielding dogs on game. The basenji world is primarily made up of people that just don't have a interest in hunting themselves and probably never will. Sport like lure is probably as close as we might come and that, as said so well before, is not hunting. A fast dog that likes to chase is only a minor component of hunting. If some of the die hard rabbit, squirrel, or other small game hunters get into a try hunter basenji, the basenji will become an instant hit because it will blow away the competition.
A hunter basenji is very similar to a coyote in ability and IMO, the coyote is the best field hunter on the North American continent. There is no other canid that has been as resilient as the coyote. Their geographical range is larger now than ever before, being in found in some places that never had a record of them before. I was an avid predator hunter for some time and had the opportunity to watch the coyote at work and put myself up against their abilities at the same time. They are amazingly intelligent creatures with an ability to calculate and problem solve all while on the run. I often used my basenjis to help me detect them from a distance. What I saw in the coyote, I see SOMETIMES in the basenji. Very few can match the cold, killing, calculation of this wild canid. However, my guess is that some of the good African stock just might.
A wild hunter has natural selection to determine who survives and thrives. The dumb dogs and those that have lessor abilities do not procreate and die off. It is the key to survival of a species. The wild dogs that survive and thrive are the top dogs in all levels. This is where the skills come from. And yes, perhaps many basenjis have little glimmers of those qualities to this day, but I will bet that none can match the natural selection survivor. This fact is important to keep in mind when one considers true hunting canids.
I have not been to Africa, never run with the B's there, and only know what I have read and seen on film, however, it appears to me that these dogs are left to their own devices more often than not and have a semi-wild life. In the field when hunting, it appears there is no control really, and what is occurring is the human hunters are pre-determining what the dogs will do in a given geographical area and putting up nets in front of them. The bell gourds are not used for control but to determine where the dogs are in relationship to the net so the human hunter can be prepared to move or adjust accordingly. This is really no different than how humans have hunted with dogs for thousands of years. Driving game to the human is simply the first and easiest method to hunt with a dog. The difference between the Af dogs and their Euro and North American counter parts from a historical perspective is the Basenji does not bark and make noise while hunting; thus the need for the bell. This also is a trait that is shared by many wild canid hunters like the wolf, coyote, and jackal) The other thing that separates the basenji from the Euro dogs, (perhaps not the native American dogs of North America), is that the European dogs during their evolution were actively bred for certain qualities and given much succor by their human partners I think to a much larger extent. They were also interbred actively with other types of dogs to increase the potential for certain traits. What this did was water down some of the survival skills while building other specific types of hunting traits and drive; e.g. pointing, flushing, retrieving.
The Basenji, IMO, was a different story and perhaps it is because there was not a lot of other dogs to mix with and the human relationship was more tribal/ hunter-gatherer vs. the Euro counterpart of evolving, modern society. The bottom line, however, appears to be that because of the tribal-hunter/ gatherer type relationship the basenji was left to its own devices historically speaking and though there was human intervention, natural selection occurred to a larger extent than the basenjis euro and American canid cousins. Now this is not a fact and only based on what I am surmising, but I believe the reason why the basenji maintains certain wild qualities above and beyond standard C. familiaris is because it was isolated for so long and left to its own devices and that time frame was not all that long ago when compared to the Euro or American dogs from a historical context. However, it is clearly obvious that times are changing in the natural geographic range of the Basenji and modern human influence including other breeds of dogs has caused the breed to evolve and become more modernized even in Africa. Obviously, not to the extent as here in the US, but evolution is occurring and what was then, may not be the same today.
This brings us to the modern basenji in America. Perhaps, we have maintained the form of the dog is a way that is historically accurate, but we have not maintained the traits or semi-natural selection that made the basenji. That is impossible because we as a modern society do not interact with our dogs like the basenjis of old. Anything we do as far as selective breeding for any purpose cannot maintain semi-wild natural selection. Certainly, breeding for appearance or a specific sport will further water down and ancient genetic traits. I think it is important for anyone reading this to not be misled by what I am doing either. It is equally impossible for me to maintain these traits in total. What I have done, is simply recognize SOME of the glimmers of wildness in the modern basenji and tried to harness them for my own purposes. I feel some of these old, wild traits are what is missing from our modern working dog. Like my ancestors before me, I am recognizing traits and harnessing them to my advantage. In many ways, this may preserve some of the old basenji but it is not preserving the entire dog as it once was. I am not sure what once was even exists anymore. I feel it is very important for all of us to understand that this is what we are all doing. What we have now is a shadow of what once was. It is a facsimile and probably not an all together accurate one.
I truly wished that I lived at the time the first basenjis were discovered. I am sure they were marvelous.
Jeff
If I had the $500 for the Astro GPS collar (not getting into the Ecollar thing, but I'd need it to locate her since she's smaller than a popcorn fart at 15 lbs, lol) I would totally take her hunting. Not sure if she could retrieve a pheasant to hand but I bet she'd have fun trying.
