Hey all, I’ve watched this forum for a long time before getting a basenji and I’ve now had mine for a year, so I guess it’s time for an intro :)

This is Bobby, my little chaos demon. He’s 18 months now and I got him at 6 months. We lived in Vienna until recently.

It’s been a heck of a ride so far. Luckily he’s great with other dogs, but we’re currently working (hard!) on keeping him from getting overstimulated when outside, a couple of suspected allergy issues, and the hardest thing right now is finding a safe space for him to be off leash. We’re also thinking of adopting a 2nd from somebody who unfortunately has to give up their pup.

Anyway, thanks for all of the help so far! This forum has been so helpful.

My scales say around 8kg now! But I had him weighed at the vet last week and he was 7.2, so my scales must be a bit off. He's definitely more steady on his feet and our walks are along canals—meaning lots of bridges and steps :) He still reaches out for Bobby's food through the crate wires after he's finished, so I'll have to get him a slow-feeder bowl. Also the peeing indoors thing has completely stopped. His crate and beds are off limits apart from feeding time and he uses a bell to go out. Success!

Him and Bobby are learning to get along well too, which is nice. There is still frequent snout-grabbing and high pitched growls from Bobby (sounds more like a cat, really), but they're getting closer and closer day by day: shared sniffing and happily rough house eachother during play—Bobby often on the receiving end. All good signs I hope.

Also, weirdly for a seemingly neglected dog he ADORES strangers. He'll go over, begging for attention and licking. Totally puzzled, because now I have 2 polar opposite basenjis:

• One won't approach strangers, one loves them
• One isn't food motivated, one is ABSOLUTELY food motivated
• One has to do the poop-prowl, one goes immediately
• One never yodels/howls, one definitely does
• One hates being near faces, one needs to be in your face
• One has an incredible dog-fixation ability, one really couldn't care less
• One PULLS after lots (and I mean lots) of work, one will walk attentively and perfectly after barely any work

That being said, they both steal, climb, hate water and go crazy if they see a rat/squirrel/bird. So there's that.

@senjisilly @elbrant thank you!

His markings really are amazing, he goes from brown in the shade to golden in the sun. He has a dark stripe running down his back which a lot of people confuse for a ridgeback. But people have asked me if he’s a cross Akita, Staffy, Whippet, Fox, pretty much everything 😅

Here’s a little video with his markings:
https://imgur.com/gallery/HWuix8V

And a picture

@zande I was so so nervous at first when they started to play, because they were totally silent, no growling at all. They still are mostly silent apart from their scampering/slamming/sliding/knocking-things-over sounds lol. Not worried at all now and rewarding them for sharing spaces seems to have helped significantly more than the whole "let them figure it out for themselves" idea.

Little update :)

He's up to 8.5kg and is definitely comfortable walking now, a little too much for my liking 😂 pulling towards all of the smells if I don't have treats and showing a little bit of frustration when he can't pull to meet another dog. He's a boisterous boy.

Thanks all for your advice. In hindsight I can't believe he was so skinny compared to now, but he's definitely going to be on the small side. We met a female who was 13kg! and dwarfed him.

@elbrant I got it from here, the loop has worn quite quickly but it’s better than some of the other collars I’ve tried: https://meandthebear.store/collections/collars/products/waxed-cotton-martingale-army-green

I’m dealing with very similar behaviour at the moment, you’re not alone!

@jkent yep! I get the same reaction here! He’s 18 months, the conversation usually goes like “ours used to do that too when he was a puppy” followed by my “I was hoping he’d grow out of it but here we are”. Sound familiar?

It got marginally better using a halti yesterday, where he was accepting treats and (eventually!) walking by (with some, um... persuasion) but I’m now avoiding parks that I are busy on sunny days. Busy streets are the most difficult, and I think it stems from him growing up during all of the intense lockdowns in Europe last year. Cities were silent, but now thronging with day trippers.

He’s never growled at another dog, but I have met a couple of people with Manchester terriers who have both mentioned theirs behaving similarly so I think it’s definitely an overstimulated-hunting-dog thing. With the lunging, I usually let him have a very slightly loose leash, he’ll wait for the other dog to come over but if it’s clear the other dog isn’t interested then I need to take it in to control the lunging—I almost have hold of his collar at that point. I try to avoid keeping it tight throughout the interaction because I believe it makes the lunging behaviour worse.

@tanza The parents were tested and are clear, but I will get some glucose test strips just in case

Another couple of accidents—both times in his bed—today and refused to walk in the morning, but seemed to be much better this evening. I will be switching his food to cooked meat with broccoli, pumpkin, egg etc from tomorrow to see whether it agrees with him.

Regarding kibble, Bobby had been fed Acana for a long time but we've realised that it was causing allergies, (both the poultry and fish versions), and there are so many "good" things in the good kibble that it's hard to track down what caused the reactions. He was fine using a bag of the crappy kibble as a pup, so we got a bag of that in case Frank had similar issues. Very frustrating!

Little update, in the space of a week he was up to 7.6kg! So all is going well. The number of accidents have reduced massively but only after being banned from ALL dog mats/beds 😅. He peed on 6 of them, even brand new and freshly washed ones. Most annoyingly, he's already much better than Bobby at walking nicely.

Him and Bobby are getting along relatively well now too, there are one or two very loud daily arguments if Frank disturbs Bobby, but it's getting much less frequent. They'll occasionally share a spot to sleep but I have to keep watch, because they seem to have a strict no touching rule between them. Sometimes Bobby wants to play and Frank seems like he doesn't know what to do/comes to me to avoid the chase, but today he was the one chasing Bobby all over the house. Success!