I'm proud of my B
We walked into a kid with bone cancer & He made everyone smile.
That is the magic of a Basenji.
Cheers,
Any advice does your Basenji like to eat paper…
Service Dogs
toilet paper, news paper, important papers…...what paper doesn't a basenji enjoy!
I am happy that you have him doing service work! B' make everyone smile.
Indeed, I have never met a paper that my B did not like. Some more than others, of course, Tissues and paper towels being the most desirable playthings.
I think it is great that you have your dog going in as a therapy/service dog. I think that might be something I would be interested in doing once I retire from my current employment and have some more time. It can't be wrong that animals, for many folks, are therapeutic. My fella makes me happy every day when I come home. 
Are Basenji a good breed to be a service dog ( guide dog, scent dog for allergy and Diabetes)?
We adopted Bunmi from BRAT in 2006. She is a petite black/white female basenji. We always knew she had a special fondness for children, however her behavior yesterday went way above and beyond what I would expect from any basenji. My husband and I are caring for little Michael, my hubby's adult son who has special needs. Yesterday he was making his usual noises while in his room playing video games. I heard him fall and immediately ran to check on him. Bunmi reached him first and was warning our other 2 basenjis to get away. Bunmi stayed with Michael as I called 911 and paced around us as I held him so he could breath. We spent several hours in the ER as Michael came out of the seizure and returned to normal. Now that we are home, Bunmi will not let him out of her sight unless Hubby is with him. She curls up no more than 2 foot away from him, no matter where he goes.
Is there anyone who has successfully trained their basenji for seizure detection? I would appreciate any advice I can get. We are working on several ideas (i.e. web cam feeding to the tv in the living room) to help us keep a close eye on Michael. Having Bunmi on the detection/protection team would be such a blessing. She has already proved her willingness and has yet again given us reason to be thankful for BRAT and the wonderful work they do.
Great story, basenji are amazing with the people they call family. My hope is to give that feeling to every sick person that could benefit having a basenji around. They not the best dog to pick for a service dog , my basenji seems to enjoy it.
Let me know how things go.
Thanks
Do basenji like paper, only when awake. Oh wait.. in their sleep they are probably dreaming about it.
@Tp3:
Great story, basenji are amazing with the people they call family. My hope is to give that feeling to every sick person that could benefit having a basenji around. They not the best dog to pick for a service dog , my basenji seems to enjoy it.
Let me know how things go.
Thanks
I agree, I have trained service dogs. My son bought what he thought was a shepherd mix to me for a crate training problem. Surprise, guess who is now here learning about how to train a basenji. The neighbors thought I was crazy to use horse whispering techniques and some rather creative approaches on her that worked with feral cats, lol.
My son continued using conventional training methods. [lmao].
I don't know if I could get this particular dog passed a Good Citizen test. I do know I am already training her in service work.
For example. I have three different ways I instruct her to sit: hand signal, verbal, collar jerk. This works for me because if she "pretends" to not understand one command, she gets the next one. She learned that if she ignores all three, its a 15 minute sitting time out, horror of horrors for a BJ.
I repeat, this dog does NOT meet my standard for a service dog, but training is an art, and I am an artist. (remember artists suffer for their art, lol)
