Accidentally got a basenji

[Baba Bamidele]

Hey, everyone! I'm a graduate student living in North Carolina. My wife and I just got back to the US from Bénin, where we lived in a small town near the border with Nigeria. I was doing my Ph.D. dissertation research in cultural anthropology, and my wife was volunteering at an orphanage.

While we were there, we adopted a puppy—my first dog. We named her Cosette (my wife was reading Les misérables at the time). The dogs where we lived are semi-pariahs; most of them have "owners," but they roam free most of the day and scavenge for food. At night, they return home for some table scraps, earning their keep by barking at strangers and scaring away would-be intruders.

We knew we'd eventually want to bring our puppy home to the US, so we did our best to socialize her with people and other dogs. It wasn't easy, since both dogs and people in Bénin tend to assume that all dogs are potentially vicious. There's very little culture of keeping pets or companion animals. A lot of people found it strange that we'd want to go to the expense to take Cosette home with us, but it did earn her a name in Yorùbá, the local language: Bámidélé—"take me home" or "go home with me."

Well, little did we know we'd adopted a basenji. One of the Americans living nearby pointed it out, so we researched the breed. Sure enough, Cosette matches the basenji's description both behaviorally and physically. (The two exceptions are that she's perhaps more elongated than the breed standard, and she can bark as well as yodel.)

As a lifelong cat owner, I'm actually quite glad that my first dog is sort of kind of a cat. Cosette's now almost 10 months old, and she's adjusting well to her new life in the States. I'm eager to keep learning about these charming African beauties on the forums!

Here's Cosette in Bénin: https://basenjiforums.com/topic/14143/cosette-bámidélé

P.S. Can someone tell me how I can change my profile picture?

[kjdonkers]

Great story! Beautiful name in Yoruba, too.
We have 2 B's, sisters. Once you have one, your life will never be the same.
There is a lot of resources on the web and on this forum lots of experienced B-owners (or, better, owned-by-B's) to help you raising Bami.
Enjoy.!

[DebraDownSouth]

@Baba-Bamidele

Welcome!

On the photo.. beats me. I can get to it.

Click on your B icon to go to your page.
Click on the red dot thing, then EDIT

Under the B on left, click then click change picture. But I get no option to upload a picture.
B
OPTIONS
Change Picture

(It also isn't letting me post a picture here.. keeps saying error, only allows blah blah blah. But it IS a jpeg file!)

[eeeefarm]

(It also isn't letting me post a picture here.. keeps saying error, only allows blah blah blah. But it IS a jpeg file!)

I ran into that problem. My file extension was .jpg which is a normal file extension for jpegs. However, it would not accept my picture until I changed the file extension to .jpeg after which it worked. (the file extensions are interchangable)

[Baba Bamidele]

Thanks for the help! I still can't get it to work, though. I go to my page, red button on right, edit, then options under my big "B" icon, then change picture. This brings up a small window that only offers the option of "Default Icon." I never get anywhere that'll let me pick a new image. I am apparently able to change my cover photo (the big banner image), though. Is there maybe a restriction that only allows someone to change the picture after X number of posts?

[Baba Bamidele]

Profile image uploading seems to be working now. I saw that folks brought this up with the forum administrators, so thanks!