Let me tell you about my first dog - I won't presume to tell you what is right for you, but you need to consider the whole story that will play out in the next 14 - 18 years.
I was 14 and I saw the movie "Goodbye my lady" on TV. I was intrigued with basenjis and did a lot of reading on the breed. I'm not a big fan of slobbery dogs, or dogs with thicker mangy fur, or dogs that smell like dogs, etc. I loved the fact that the basenji has some ancient history. I finally found a breeder that had a dog (I was late for the B breeding season), a 6 month old female a couple of hours away. I had my own money from my paper route and so we took a trip down to the breeder in central Virginia. They lived in a (double wide?) trailer, and what impressed my parents is that there were 3 B's living there at the time, and the house didn't smell like dogs! My parents consented, I wrote out the check for $300, and I had myself my first Basenji - Sundance Liberty Bell (born in 1976, the bicentennial) - "Bell" for short. I don't remember too many house training issues, but Bell did tear down my mom's curtains once because she was in the house too long one day when we were away. We discovered that she could climb chain link fences easily, so we couldn't just leave her in the backyard alone. We settled into life with her, and all grew to love her very much. When I was 16 we moved to Utah (my dad retired and both of my parents were from Utah). My dad found an elderly widow that had a lot of property and offered to take care of her orchard, and farm a couple of acres that she had and could no longer take care of. Bell loved spending the day working the ground with my dad and running around the orchard during the day. She even did well in the snow (we had also had snow in Virginia, so it wasn't anything new, just more of it!). We had a backyard with a 6' wooden fence, so she could spend more time in the backyard. Though we did discover that putting a wood pile next to the fence was a bad idea. Bell climbed the wood pile and jumped over the fence - she was a bit sore for a few days after the landing though! She would escape out the front door anytime that she could, but we found that lighting a firecracker would bring her back better than anything! We lived on a somewhat busy street, so we always tried to get her back as soon as we could!
Then I graduated from High School and went off to college. Of course I couldn't take Bell with me, so she stayed with my parents. Fortunately, they both enjoyed her company and loved her as much as I did. I spent a couple of years in Germany on a mission for my church, then returned and again was in college. It wasn't too long that I was married, and we lived in apartments where we couldn't have a dog, so at this point Bell was pretty much my parents dog. Bell lived a long (15 years I think) and happy life, but most of it with my parents.
So, the moral of the story, is that your parents need to know that they might be the ones taking care of your B at some point in the future. After college you might be able to take her back, but in the mean time, they (or someone else of your choosing) might be the ones taking care of your B. I'm now on my third Basenji. I think the biggest mistake that I made with my first two was that I didn't get them out on enough walks. Samantha, my current B, has been a total sweetheart! We got her a year and a half ago, she was a 4-1/2 year old female in a family that had just had a baby and she was not getting along with the baby. Again, I can't say this enough - Basenjis need exercise! They are sooo much better behaved when they get enough, and especially my second one didn't get enough!
I love Basenjis - I don't think that there is another breed that I would have. Just remember that this is a very long term commitment, and everyone needs to be on board for it.
