Anne has gotten quite bitey lately! If I go to pet her after she does something good she'll nip at me playfully or if I have a treat in my hand she'll nip at it to get the treat.

Now, I know the normal way to deal with dogs doing this is to stop play immediately and turn away, maybe say ouch when they nip… and then they should feel bad that they stopped play time because they nipped. I've been doing this anytime she nips, but I don't really think it is connecting.

If she nips at me and I stop playing or petting her and turn away she sort of just goes "whatever" almost instantly and goes to find something else to do. She doesn't really seem to be affected by me withdrawing my attention because she bit.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to deal with a particularly bitey basenji pup who loses interest quickly?

So, I've been working on training Anne recently. Getting her basic manners in check and getting her comfortable with the basic commands.

She's very smart! She'll sit, lay down, go back up to sit, crawl (that one kind of happened on its own and I assigned a command to it :P) come (sometimes, if she's not distracted doing something else), heel, jump, up (for getting in the car or on the couch), off (she's not as keen on doing this one all the time, but she understands it well enough). Not bad at all for one and a half week of training!

However… I've ran into a huge road block! Anything patience related is proving to be quite hard to instill into little impatient Anne. I've been reading books and websites on dog training like crazy, but they don't tackle how to deal with dogs who don't much care to hold still or show much self-restraint.

She understands leave it... to an extent. She'll stop chasing the cat if I call out "Leave it" and she'll sit down and wait for me to say something else. She'll even ignore a barking dog when we're on a walk if I call leave it... but if there's something on the ground that she's interested in she won't stop at anything till it is sufficiently smelled and chewed.

Likewise, if I'm practicing leave it with her with treats (placing one, having her leave it, then giving her a bigger treat for compliance) she'll only do it once or twice max. Then she gets up and walks away to look for crumbs that were dropped by the table or to retrieve a treat she had hid somewhere in the house previously (she'll refuse to come at this time as well). Almost as if she remembered there were easier ways to get treats then practicing such an awful thing as restraint.

On a similar note, if I am training Anne to stay she'll lose interest the moment I take a step backwards then she will turn around and go do something else. It seems as though she gets bored and loses interest with anything that isn't constant commands and rewards or praise.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get Anne to practice some restraint despite her short attention span. I really need her to learn stay or leave it so I can keep her from bothering other people or following anything that moves, hahah.

I've noticed recently Anne has began discharging a green/yellowish viscous substance when she urinates. She's been drinking plenty of water and doesn't seem to be in any pain and it doesn't seem to bother her much… just takes her a little longer to pee.

She was spayed and had just got her stitches out days before we adopted her. Might it be possible she has come down with some sort of infection?

Regardless, I have made an appointment at the earliest date (next monday) to take her in and get it looked at... but I was wondering if anyone had an idea as to what it might be?

(Also, sorry for a not so specific to basenji question - I'm just kind of worried and didn't know who else to ask.)

Cute. Seems like she kind of regretted jumping in afterwards though, hahah.

Since Anne and her brother and sister were found abandoned, no information exists about her parents… Going to have her tested for Falconi syndrome sometime soon.

However, I was just wondering... what are the chances of a Basenji mix being afflicted by it? It seems to me that unless the non-basenji parent somehow had the syndrome that she would, at very worst, inherit the genes to make her a carrier. I'm not sure though... if anyone has any info on the subject I would be interested to know.

Hello! Nice to meet you fellow new basenji owner! And a basenji/ mix owner at that.

I'm sorry to hear about your cats, but at 17 and 18 I'm sure they lived a long healthy and happy life. I'm sure you'll do great with a basenji too.

Good luck with Bella's obedience training.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! Looking forward to getting to know you all and learning from you.

BasenjiDiva

Anne is about four months old, so still just a puppy! She is is very cute. Originally when I was looking at petfinder to find a basenji to adopt I had really liked her a lot but my mom and girlfriend both thought her brother was just too cute to pass up and talked me into trying to adopt him instead. Her brother had already been adopted by the time I submitted my application though, so I ended up adopting Anne in the end anyway~! My girlfriend was sad, but I was secretly really happy I adopted her.

It's hard to get her to hold still long enough to take pictures! Even with a quick shutter speed. Here's a few of the better ones that I've managed to take:

Good afternoon!

My name is Wes and I have recently adopted a little basenji/mix puppy named Anne. Her and her brother and sister were rescued from Taiwan and had all their shots and were sent over to the states to find a good home. Since the pups were found abandoned in Taiwan they weren't exactly sure what breed they were, but they looked and acted enough like Basenji that it's probably a safe bet. The people at the rescue agency suspected they were basenji/labs since Anne's sister was completely black and their tails aren't quite as curly as normal.

Anne definitely has the basenji personality. She's stubborn as a mule, but an extremely quick learner. Since we adopted her (one week ago exactly), she has already learned come, sit, down, going from down to sit, and leave it… however, she only performs these tasks when it is convenient for her, hahah! She loves to run and has already tried to escape several times... but she's very good about not chasing. She tried chasing my cat the second time she met him but quickly learned "leave it" and doesn't bother him (if I'm watching to tell her not to at least).

I haven't had a dog since I was very young and I am twenty years old now. When I was diagnosed with depression, my doctor asked me if I liked animals. Since I do, he suggested I look into getting a dog. After spending about a month researching dog breeds I decided that a basenji was a good match for me. However, I wasn't aware of the challenge they presented!

I absolutely love Anne, but she's quite the handful! So much energy and I need to keep my eyes on her constantly to make sure she's not chewing on a rug or investigating the cords behind the TV. But at the end of the day she wants nothing more than to curl up next to me on the couch and take a nice long sleep. So sweet.

In any case, as a novice dog owner and a first time basenji owner I figure it would be good to have contact with those people more experienced and skilled with the handling of these lovable crafty little dogs.

Nice to meet you!