Posts made by mdean8

I will say one thing that I'm remembering and I don't know if it's a habit of hers that I need to break - she sees dogs approaching her, and she will lay down and wait for them. Is this her way of saying "this is my ground, stay away"??

Hello everyone - it's been awhile since we have posted on issues or questions about our dog, Waffles, but now I fear it's time to return.

Waffles, as some of you may know, is a little over 1 year old - going on 1 yr. 2 mo. here in February. She's a fixed female and lives in the city of Chicago with me and my girlfriend Sara. We take her for walks 3 times a day and to the park a couple of times a week, with her hating this weather and all.

Lately she has become aggressive towards other dogs, in say the past 2-3 months. I have noticed, personally, that when a dog starts to sniff her first (regardless of a girl or boy, big or small, young or old) she snaps and starts her little "gobble" as we call it when she gets a little too aggressive. When I back her off and let her know with a stern voice that isn't acceptable, I will reintroduce her slowly with restraint. When both dogs are just nose to nose and slowly ease into sniffing around, then they end up LOVING each other and playing.

I'm trying to think of a way to get around this, what can it be? Is she just naturally maturing into more aggression since she's the only Basenji in the home? Does she need to undergo some more socialization? She's been extremely well loved and socialized since she was 8 weeks old and we've never had this issue before.

Please help!!

I was so flustered i never even thought to take the sample from the store! It was so liquid though i don't know how useful it would have been. Of course now it's back to normal, so whatever sample i bring in tomorrow will probably come up clear. I will have to ask him about stool kit so that i am prepared next time this pops up!

Our 1 year old girl has had on and off bouts with diarrhea since we have had her, and working with vet, we have been able to manage it through diet, and she responds really well to probiotics & pumpkin whenever she does have a flare up. She had been doing so great, with really normal poops for the past month, when we were at the pet store today, and she was all kinds of hyped up because of all the dogs, toys, people petting her, etc, etc, she out of no where had explosive diarrhea right in the store. After almost dying of embarrassment, a store employee was helping us clean it up, and she pointed to some blood in her stool. Luckily, we were able to catch the vets office before they closed, and we will be bringing in a stool sample Monday morning. In the past, they have suspected she might have by IBD, but is an assumption based on the fact that everything always comes up normal.

Should we be requesting any other tests besides the fecal sample? I guess i just panicked a little at how this flare up came out of nowhere, and the presence of a little blood. Can extreme excitement trigger flare-ups like this? regardless, she will be having a dose of probiotic and pumpkin for dinner. She seems to be acting totally normal post incident, and even tried to grab a toy on the way out of the store…

She is otherwise healthy - fanconi negative, voracious appetite, lots of energy and very happy/friendly. She just has explosive diarrhea sometimes.

Are we missing something??

We are spaying her later this month - hopefully that will help! Although she was back to her friendly self with every dog she met today…hopefully it was just that boston terrier that rubbed her the wrong way!

I assure you, no attempt was made to catch the toy!

Waffles first trip to the dog beach, definitely the only basenji we saw

Waffles, our 7 month old girl, growled at another dog for the first time today! It started as a casual hello with a passing dog (as happens about 10-15 times every single day) and they circled a little sniffing each other and next think i know, Waffles is growling hysterically, almost shrieking, something i have never heard her do EVER, with people or dogs! The woman with the other dog said her dog brings out the worst in other dogs sometimes, but we were horrified/embarrassed about the whole ordeal. Can dogs put out a bad vibe? I suppose he could have nipped her without us seeing, but she is normally so friendly and playful!

Is this just one random incident, or the start of an aggressive phase? We pulled her away from the other dog immediately and held her to calm her down (she seemed fine once separated), but is that the right response should this situation ever come up again?

We are having a somewhat brutal allergy season in Chicago, and i know both Matt and I have been suffering, but i think Waffles might have allergies too! For the past couple days her nose and eyes have been pinker than normal, she has been rubbing her eyes, and they have been watering/producing eye boogers. Can dogs be affected by seasonal allergies? She has a routine vet appointment next week, but i wasn't sure if i should try to take her in sooner! (behavior wise she is acting fine - still as high energy as ever!)

so…...................the new thing with Waffles is that we have switched her food from Holistic Select to Fromms. She wasnt eating the Holistic Select hardly at all, but she was doing great with potty training (probably because her intake of food was lower).

Now that she is on Fromms, she LITERALLY craps 5 minutes after she eats. And lets not forget, she has just gone out 15 minutes prior. Now this is suddenly happening, and hasn't happened before. It's insanely annoying and aggravating at the same time.

Any responses as to what we can do or what is causing this?

Waffles is the same age, and LOVES anything soft/fuzzy. All her favorite toys are the stuffed or fabric ones. She attacks feet when they are wearing socks, but isn't really interested in bare feet or shoes.

Hello again everyone!

Waffles has made some very very good progress (for those who are new to us and our past with Waffles, visit http://www.basenjiforums.com/showthread.php?12794-Violent-lil-girl!) since the last time we saw you all! She is sleeping through the nights much better, no longer crying about 90% of the time when I come home from work/lunch to let her out in 4-5 hour periods, and she is learning more and more that the house is no place to go to the bathroom.

We do however have an issue with her wanting to go INTO the crate at lunch and in the morning when we have to leave…

Since she is now 11-1/2 weeks old, she is still a hyper little girl and wants to play 24/7, especially coming inside from a fresh walk outdoors. Here's how it is going when we bring her in one last time before crating her:

1. Once she goes to the bathroom, we carry her up the stairs to the 3rd floor (since she is still too little to run up and down the stairs on her own) to our apartment.
2. Inside now, we let her free in the living room (her main play area) to run around before we crate her.
3. She then proceeds to "pretend" to play, before a few seconds later running under our credenza/buffet hutch and hiding.

We have to pull her out from underneath because she will not budge, I believe she has caught onto knowing that she's about to become crated.

She is fed water/food inside of her cage every day for every meal, to get her comfortable...but that seems to have its limits. She is also given a rotation of Puppy Treat spray/cream cheese in a Kong for going inside of the crate, but she is done being lured inside. She knows what is about to happen.

So the crying is for the most part done, but she will not go inside on her own. Any suggestions would be extremely helpful, thanks!

Did i ask a question? Also, I'm deeply concerned about your spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. Perhaps you're the idiot?

Waffles favorite place in the early am is spread out across my laptop. She loves to watch the cursor move, or to just sleep on the warm keyboard!! She has opened itunes multiple times to blast Queen….....wakes you up better than coffee!

Waffles is doing really well! @Patty M, she started Baroo-ing! I was so startled at first it scared me! Now she does it in the morning when one of us wakes up, and she realized we are up for good to play with her and feed her, she lets out a loud baroo, almost like a puppy-rooster.

Crate training is going much better- she rarely cries (at least that we know of) she does try and hide in the morning when when she senses we are going to leave for work. she eventually succumbs to the deliciousness of cream cheese , but its definitely an ordeal! We're just taking it one day at a time. She is evening sleeping through the night about 25% of the time. There is nothing so glorious as 6 hours of sleep!!

Crate training has been getting better with waffles, now that she is responding to treats! The only problem is, she doesn't seem very interested in peanut butter or other puppy treats, but she LOVES cream cheese! We have been giving her a small amount in a Kong when we leave for work. I have heard mixed reviews on cream cheese - some people say to go ahead and use it as a treat, and others say to avoid "people food". Is anyone else using cream cheese? Anything similar that she would like that might be better for her?

We will be buying the Fanconi kit from the site you have all recommended, so thanks for that information…much appreciated.

Good news is that she is understanding her routine more and more every day. She hasn't had an accident in the house for a few days now...unfortunately we found day-old poop in the corner a couple days ago from one time, but that hasn't happened again since. We make sure that she goes #2 outside when we know she needs to go (i.e. after she eats a good amount of her food).

@ krunzer - When we take her out she loves to run naturally out of excitement, at least for a little bit. Our walks don't exceed 15-20 minutes and we make sure to stay out there until business is taken care of.

@YodelMa - you have some awesome advice regarding B pup's having bathroom issues from digestion/eating, but she has been doing well actually from her diet.

Anyone have the best method to get them to stop doing something (you can probably guess chewing is one of them)? We usually try to get her to chew on a toy when she begins to chew on a pillow or something she shouldn't be on. I'm just curious what would be the best method (clapping, saying "no," tapping on the nose, etc)?

Thanks again everyone, you've all made this experience much more comfortable since we've joined the forum!!!

Thanks so much for the book recommendations!! I will check the library down the street tomorrow to see if they have them. Her first appt with our vet here is in a couple weeks, so we will make sure to check akc, as well as bring up this testing that you have recommended

@Patty It's like someone heard our cries for help and sent us a couple of 50 degree days here in the windy city. Probably why Waffles is so excited to be outside, (i feel the same way!) We are also in a very dog friendly neighborhood, we usually encounter one or two every time we go outside during peak hours (3am is our only peaceful potty time!) She is only just now really getting into treats, so i am hoping that as she develops a taste for them, she will start being more motivated.

We have tried to go up the stairs a couple times when we aren't in a hurry like we are coming down. She is interested and seems to want to climb them, but is a little too timid. She gives a half-hearted attempt and then just looks at you to say "ok, i tried, you can carry me up now!" (**we actually don't have an elevator, so it's always stairs. our fitness level is increasing daily)

And she doesn't roo! (at least not yet. Her parents were very quiet though, so we will have to see!)

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I think what's driving our constant "new parent paranoia" is that we have received so much feedback telling us that we never should have gotten a puppy so young. We met with the breeder multiple times, and were led to believe that 8 weeks is normal. either way, she is with us now, and we would be devastated without her, so we want to do the best we humanly can. We are extra fearful now that because she is so young, if we make a single mistake it will have a terrible long lasting effect (what if she never learns to poop outside because we let her explore??) We love her and want her to have the best life possible, and we are kind of upset with ourselves when there is an accident. (a personal failure because we are inexperienced?)

We are actually happy to spend a lot of time with her outside (despite the Chicago winter) however our breeder and others warned us about letting her walk too much at this young age, because her bones and muscles are still developing. We have been capping the walks/play outside time to 15 minute intervals, but maybe we should be going longer. She shows no signs of being even remotely tired - she will be a runner some day!

We're just struggling to find the happy puppy/relaxed puppy parents balance. Thanks for all the experienced responses and words of encouragement!

Sara,
Puppy-mom to Waffles!