Hello all,

It has been a while since I posted here. I have been with my pure breed Basenji "Marvel" for 5 years. Plenty of ups and downs that make life interesting and fun. This page has helped us a lot during his upbringing, so I decided to come back for more guidance.

My wife and I are planning to try having kids soon, but we are extremely concerned with how our basenji will behave with our child and vice versa. The three of us operate in a tight pack and we all love each other dearly. We recently bought a house with a big backyard just for him, and it has helped a lot, but he is pretty stubborn and his attitude has up and downs. He's not friendly with strangers, including kids, and it's a hit or miss with other dogs. He is sometimes "okay" to be touched by a stranger IF they let Marvel approach them. He is also not neutered. His behavior changes during mating season - mounting, more aggression, possesive, etc. I'm extremely concerned about the possibility of Marvel biting our future child.

Today, he surprisingly bit my wife really hard while protecting his food when we were trying to give him meds; he recently had a GI issue that we are addressing with medication. Drew blood and bruise on her hand. This triggered us to really talk future plans and impacts to bringing a child in with Marvel.

We decided to get him into training courses asap, something we never considered before. I dont care how much is costs, we are going all in with training. I only hope that he is not set in his ways... We are also probably going to consider neutering him.

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Peter

Hi everyone,

First off, thank you for these forums. I learned so much from many topics on here and it has helped me with raising my Basenji.

Background:
I have a 2 year old Basenji named Marvel. I love him to death like if he were my own son, and nothing will make me get rid of him. He is actually a well behaved dog (for a Basenji) compared to most that I hear about - he doesn't "go" in the house, he doesn't chew things that he shouldn't, he listens as well as a Basenji can, etc. We usually keep him in the cage for ~8 hours for 4 days a week and he sleeps with us in the bed. We only ever put him in the kennel when we leave for work or go out somewhere. We take him to the park almost everyday to help get his energy out with other dogs, if not then we take him on long walks. He always seems satisfied. Also, he is not neutered.

Problem(s):
Something has changed lately as of April. He is now ALWAYS waking up whining and crying at 6 am, no matter what time we go to bed (9am, 11am, what ever). He used to wake up anywhere between 7:30-10 am, and when he does he will whine a bit to let us know that he has to go outside. But he is now getting up at 6 am everyday and whining very audibly. We are obviously forced to take him out. Not only that, but now he won't stop crying throughout the day while he is awake. We will take him out multiple times a day in hopes to get him to stop, but he doesn't. He even starts crying again as soon as he gets back inside even after he did his business and got his energy out. He eventually cries himself to sleep until he wakes up to recommence his whining. Actually, as I write this, he woke up into a whining frenzy even though I took him to the park 30 minutes ago for an hour of playtime...

I have noticed that his whining gets even more triggered when he hears a dog barking outside, and he starts pacing around and standing by the door (his sign to tell us he needs to go). The same thing happens at the dog park - sometimes he will be alone at the park and he sees a dog outside of the park (not coming into the park) and he goes into an incredible whining frenzy to try and get to the other dog.

And I get the feeling that he is constantly whining knowing that we will eventually take him outside, even if he doesn't have to go or already drained himself.

I recall him having this EXACT issue last year around the same time of the year. He eventually stopped and went back to his normal routine. Could this be a seasonal thing? Can he tell that females are in heat and he just wants to get outside because of it? Should we get him neutered? Do I sound crazy for asking these questions? Please... help...

Thank you.

I completely forgot about this topic, but I figure I would reply (after a 4 month hiatus) with updates. Thank you all for your responses.

Marvel no longer bites (what a relief!). It stopped around the time that all of his adult teeth were falling out, so I assume it was related to the discomfort of his baby teeth. He will play bite every now and then, but nothing drastic.

Marvel no longer wakes up absurdly early now that he's 6 months old, as someone pointed out. He typically gets up when we do except for the rare occasion here and there.

Marvel has been marvelous and his behavior only gets better. The only "issue" we deal with now is his separation anxiety when we leave him in a crate. I'll probably make a separate topic on this. And he seems to be strangely attached/dominant to my girlfriends underwear when he manages to get a hold of it...

Thanks!
Peter

Thank you for the quick responses!

The breeders are Jon and Vickie Curby in Columbia, Missouri.
I uploaded his pedigree in the following link https://imageshack.us/i/plKBpK3mj

Just something I should have clarified, I was warned not to leave him in the kennel for up to 8 hours by the breeders. Ashley and I set up a set schedule where if we are both at work, then I come home from work after 4 or so hours and work from home to get him out of the kennel. Since Ashley works part time, he is only in the kennel about 3 times a week when we are both at work. I won't be able to maintain the act of working from home on some days, so we bought a play pen from walmart as a "just in case" situation where neither of us would be able to manage being home for 8 hours. It proved useless since the play pen was too flimsy and cheap (probably my fault for going to walmart), so I returned it.

I got into the habit of tiring him out at night about an hour before bed by going a long sprints with him in the apartment hallways, and it has helped.

Thank you both for the advice. We have trained him enough to the point where he will listen to "SIT", and "STAY", even "HIGH FIVE" :)
I'm actually surprised at how quickly he learned.

Other than that, we've had a wonderful and fun experience so far. I'll post a few pictures on here soon. I expect to take advantage of these forums.

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this forum so I figure it would make sense to introduce myself before asking for advice. My name is Peter and I live in Missouri with my girlfriend, Ashley. We decided on get a Basenji to join our family :).

Our Basenji, named Marvel, is male and is currently 11 weeks old. We got him when he was 8 weeks old from a breeder. He has been doing great in terms of house training and doing most of his business outside. We keep him in a kennel when we go to work (~8 hours per day on weekdays) and we let him sleep with us in the bed at night. My thought behind this process is that I hate kenneling a dog during the day and at night. I feel like it's cruel to an animal to have him there for more than 8 hours a 24 hour day. We don't kennel him during the weekends.

Though, we are running into a couple of issues that we don't know how to handle since he is our first Basenji:

1. He ALWAYS wakes up at 6 am. I don't mind this during the weekdays since I wake up around that time for work anyways. I take him outside first thing in the morning when he wakes me up. But obviously, he does this on weekends as well. Nobody likes waking up early on weekends for obvious reasons. Since I assume he has to go outside, I do it. Is there anything we can do to avoid this? He is still a puppy so I assume he is too young to hold it in during the night, but he holds it in all day while we're at work. I looked through the forums and it seems like people suggest kenneling him at night. But I feel so guilty kenneling him all night and all day while we're at work :(

2. Play/Aggressive biting... it seems that all he ever does now is bite everything. He does a "decent" job not biting things that he shouldn't (furniture wise), but he is constantly play biting us. This is my main concern since his bites this week have been extra painful causing lots of pain and bleeding on rare occasions. We usually try to distract him with his toys, but he always comes back to our hands/face/arms/etc. Yelling doesn't seem to help...I figure that it would stop when he is older, but I don't want to wait to take that risk when he may not change.

I really appreciate any tips since this is my first time with a Basenji.

Thank you!
Peter