Basenji Language 101

[Maya]

So interesting to read this thread!

I had always heard about basenjis "talking" to their owners, but thought it was probably being exaggerated. But if i go out anywhere, even if its only for an hour, Maya comes running up to me as soon as I return to tell me all about what she's been doing, waggy tail and all! I love it, she's such a happy person when she's rooing and talking away

I also agree that they can have some kind of 6th sense. I know that of my 4 dogs living with me, Maya is by far the most sensitive to my moods. If im feeling a bit down and depressed she will be all playful and cuddly and if im in a bad mood she will just go and lie somewhere quietly and leave me alone.

[Andrew]

@DebraDownSouth:

Cesar experience? You mean blowhard machoism interpretation of animals? Sorry couldn't let that one go

HA!!!! :D:D:D

Mauigirl & I went hiking with our 4 basenjis one day. Callie & Lola were on a coupler, and when they are leashed together on a coupler, they are nightmares with the pulling.
At the bottom of the mountain before starting our hike, a man approached us asking about our dogs. He joined us for the hike up the mountain, and we tried to explain basenjis & their unique quirks. I was getting increasingly frustrated with the girls pulling my arm off, and he mentioned to me that I needed to have them at heel & control them. I replied, "We're on a walk that is as much for them as it is for me. It doesn't make a dang bit of difference where, in relation to me, they are, as long as its not hurting my arm. There are too many things to see & smell to fairly ask or expect this breed to be at my side the whole time." He kept offering us Cesar Milan style training advice, and Mauigirl & I were starting to exchange looks like "Is this guy for real!?" Finally, he asked if he could try walking my dogs. I let him. He pulled their leash & kept them right at his side, making "Tss!!" noises at them. He tried for maybe 3 minutes, tops, and suddenly said, "You're right! These guys are difficult!"
Ya think?

But not to hijack the thread & turn it into a Cesar discussion…. Callie makes almost no noise. She burps & makes a "Bwap" noise when she yawns. Sometimes I'll make her yawn noises back at her & she'll make them again. I don't know if she's responding to me though. If I tell Lola to "speak" she'll give a little whine, and if I get her worked up by making funny noises, she'll baroo. She will also baroo with me sometimes.
I took agility classes with Lola & learned that dogs communicate mostly through body language, so they are very tuned in to body language. I am now more purposeful with my body language, and although I don't feel we communicate much through noises, I KNOW we have full & rich conversations with body language.

[DebraDownSouth]

I have such baroo envy. I miss Sayblee's basenji baroos and yodels and "i want some" talk.

[Patty]

Thank you for that link Debra - the articles on the site are very interesting but I most like her quote
"There might be one true way to spiritual enlightenment but there is no such road that leads to one 'right' way to train a dog".

How true.

[agilebasenji]

@DebraDownSouth:

Calming signals. I remember the first time I read it and thought… yeah right. Every dog responded with a yawn and relaxed attitude.
You simply look at the dog, slowly close and open your eyes, and yawn.

I remember when I first read about and started using calming signals. It amazes me how many dog savvy people don't know about them today. I introduced someone to this notion just this weekend at an agility trial. I fully believe that the biggest contributing factor to Jet the try-ing's Open and Excellent agility titles were the calming signals I used before and during his runs. Years ago someone was telling me about their agility dog. I said "Try yawning at her." gg You should have seen the look I got. But, you know, hey, it's worth a shot!

[Nemo]

@agilebasenji:

I remember when I first read about and started using calming signals. It amazes me how many dog savvy people don't know about them today. I introduced someone to this notion just this weekend at an agility trial. I fully believe that the biggest contributing factor to Jet the try-ing's Open and Excellent agility titles were the calming signals I used before and during his runs. Years ago someone was telling me about their agility dog. I said "Try yawning at her." gg You should have seen the look I got. But, you know, hey, it's worth a shot!

Once I learned about them it definitely changed my perspective on watching my dogs' behavior. Here is a nice, short book that covers the subject in case anyone is interested.

http://www.amazon.com/Calming-Signals-What-Your-Tells/dp/B000PGTF32/ref=pd_bxgy_d_img_a

[lvoss]

Here is some links to YouTube videos about canine body language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00_9JPltXHI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY8NpMm2OVA

[DebraDownSouth]

@agilebasenji:

I remember when I first read about and started using calming signals. It amazes me how many dog savvy people don't know about them today.

I don't know why but that reminds me of a quote about living with wolves as pets… that most people are not aware enough of behavior clues and signals to safely do it. And then I think of the person (I think NJ?) years ago who had a wolf/dog, brought home her new born baby, held it down to show the wolf who promptly grabbed it by the head and killed it.

I have known many people with wolf/dogs (I refuse to use hybrid.. dogs are descended from wolves so not really a hybrid). And I can say that of all of them precisely ONE should have owned it. They had the home, the set up, the animal saavy and the ability to provide the animal a private life where it and the public were safe. In fact when it died at about 14 yrs of age, they got a new one that is about now about 7.

And it is why when I took the chow/coyotee out of the shelter I knew she could only stay with me. She would not have been safe in most homes and I wouldn't have risked the liability. We loved, adored cherished and enjoyed her. But she could get upset and make noises that would make the hair stand on the back of your neck. I muzzled her for almost 1 1/2 yrs doing her nails or ANYTHING that might frighten her. I actually cried the first time, almost 18 mos after we got her (she was an adult btw.. about 11 to 13 mos, feral, when I got her) when she play bowed to me the first time.

Which gets my long winded post back to calming signals. Without calming signals, we could not have lived with Katana. She was very skittish, the world was frightening to her. She went from living loose to a shelter for 3 mos, to my house. She stood on coffee tables, couch... had never been inside. She startled when you turned the tv on or off for about 2 yrs. But with calming signals and love, she came to trust me utterly. I think she would have tried to let me do open heart surgery on her wide awake, once she bonded. But I called a trainer who works with fearful dogs many times on consults that first 2 yrs. (I had never had a fearful dog, my type always ran to the aggression issues lol). Calming signals... sounds so simple, almost not worth the bother, don't they? Yet to me, we spend a dog's life making them learn our modes of communicating, our language, our commands. I wish everyone getting a dog had to take a test on dog behaviors and body language and yeah, calming signals. Our dogs would live much happier lives.

Rant done. sorry.

[Nemo]

You bring up a good point around education of how dogs communicate. I wish the topic of calming signals or body language was discussed more generally in socialization and training classes (maybe it is elsewhere, it's not here). Watching a puppy interact with another dog is a great way to see example behaviors. Granted, signals are contextually sensitive which makes it more challenging to teach. But even introducing the concept in a class (or a handout) would go a long way, IMO.

[lvoss]

I think it really depends on the trainer whether it is discussed. The YouTube links I provided, I was given by my obedience instructor. It was part of this week's homework to watch the videos. My instructor maintains a Yahoo Group though where she often includes videos as part of our homework. Some of them are, watch this video clip and tell me what you see. Is the dog relaxed? stressed? How do you know? She also lones out the Language of Dogs and has had viewing nights.

I am now teaching rally classes and I often discuss body language with my students as often their dogs disconnect from them because they close the shoulder on them during the various turning exercises.

I attended a seminar this fall that is the prerequisite to taking dogs classes through the Experimental College at UC Davis and a large part was looking at video and learning to recognize signals the dogs were given. The presenter was Dr Sophia Yin, who knows me and my basenjis, and she was so delighted I was there to see the part where she asks students to tell whether dogs in a couple of clips found praise rewarding. The basenji clearly did not and was waiting for the "real' payment for doing well.

[DebraDownSouth]

Yep, but sadly you are already a dog guru, so you knew what to look for in a trainer. Most people think that going to their local petsmart gives them a real dog trainer when actually 98 percent are trained by the store prior to becoming "trainers." I thought I was mortifying my daughter just last month when I stopped not ONE but 2 trainers in the aisles at Petsmart, took the dog, showed the owners how to teach loose leash and admonished the trainers on pop and jerk. I had not witnessed them ever doing that before so don't know if they had some new supervisor in telling them to… but I then went to the office and complained. My daughter actually was glad I did.

LOL on real payment. OMG... Rotties are so praise oriented. Someone tell me again why I have these brats? LOL.

[lvoss]

Actually, when I found my current trainer, I don't think I would have called myself a dog guru, especially not when it came to training. I knew I wanted a positive reinforcement trainer, I did had some questions that I knew to ask but part of it was I had learned from my mistakes with my first two and I just plain got a bit lucky.

I tell people that finding a good dog trainer is hard and I agree that the hardest part is the people who need them the most don't know what they should be looking for. I know that my trainer is not the only one out there who is including this sort of information in their classes but it is still just starting that people recognize that it is important information.

[Shannanigan]

Paco complains…at length...when someone enters the house and doesn't immediately compliment his beauty and ask to pet him. Same when we're taking too long to cook a meal for him.

He also has a loonnnnnng low sound he makes that sounds like a growl, but isn't quite, which he ONLY emits when he has a ball in his mouth. He won't do it with other toys, just with balls as he brings them back after a throw...it's like he's daring you to take the ball out of his mouth before he's decided to drop it, or maybe he's just announcing to everyone that he is an amazing basenji for knowing how to fetch.

He will also sigh with content when he's found that "just right" spot behind my or Chris' knees under the blanket at bedtime. Soooo cute.

He will snort through his nose at lizards that have the audacity to escape him out on the balcony. He never "baroos" at them or the chickens, surprisingly.

[Nemo]

@lvoss:

I attended a seminar this fall that is the prerequisite to taking dogs classes through the Experimental College at UC Davis and a large part was looking at video and learning to recognize signals the dogs were given. The presenter was Dr Sophia Yin, who knows me and my basenjis, and she was so delighted I was there to see the part where she asks students to tell whether dogs in a couple of clips found praise rewarding. The basenji clearly did not and was waiting for the "real' payment for doing well.

I'm slightly jealous. I like Sophia Yin, I have one of her books and read her blog.

@lvoss:

I tell people that finding a good dog trainer is hard and I agree that the hardest part is the people who need them the most don't know what they should be looking for. I know that my trainer is not the only one out there who is including this sort of information in their classes but it is still just starting that people recognize that it is important information.

I've been looking for a good trainer for a while and I think I may have finally found one. We start classes in two weeks. She's relatively far away (2 1/2 hours driving total there and back) but I think it will be worth the time. She limits the class size to about 8 dogs so she can focus on the individual dogs.

[Mojo's Mom]

This is a little different than the situaions described, but I agree, Basenji's have a 6th sense. My neighbor dropped by a few weeks ago to talk for a few minuted, as she has done many times in the past. When she walked in the door Mojo walked over by her, as he always does, and started growling and snapped at her. He has never done that before. The very next day, her husband had to bring her to the emergency room because she was in such severe pain. They found she had a cyst on her vertabrae that was causing the pain. It was like Mojo knew there was something wrong with her. Watch for those Basenji signals…..they're onto something!

[DebraDownSouth]

Not to be a doubter… but I doubt he knew something was wrong. Might he have picked up on her stress due to pain.. yes. But I'd be more concerned with his behavior and make sure it isn't repeated.

[Mojo's Mom]

He hasn't repeated that behavior…..at least not to people. He will growl at other dogs, but only if they are bigger than him. I have started taking him to the dog park quite frequently to socialize him with other dogs. He is starting to make some progress there!