Hey guys-

So we just got back from the emergency vet and we almost lost Piggy tonight! The good news is she made it. I let her out in the back to go potty and she was only out there for about 10 minutes. When I went back to get her she was kind of laying up against the fence funny but she got up and walked in. I got her in and she couldn't stand up. She fell right over. I knew something wasn't right. I checked her vitals and they weren't good. We ran out of the house and raced to the E-vet. She was in shock from an allergic reaction. Her temp was 96 and her heart rate was 150. They brought in the estimate and I almost threw up, it was $1100! We decided to just have them get her stable and take her home (rather than leaving her there). They assured us we didn't make a bad decision but I am still so nervous about it. We got out of there paying $400 and I figure I will just bring her back if it worsens overnight. They don't know what caused it, though they are assuming a bee. They said that we may not be so lucky next time. Jason has poison ivy that we are assuming he got from the woods behind our house, which is close to our kennel. So I haven't ruled that out myself.

Has anyone ever had anything like this happen??

The emergency vet said they don't have "epipens" for dogs but the all knowing internet tells me otherwise. Has anyone ever heard of this?

I am really considering pet insurance now. Do you guys have it? What are your experiences?

I am going to try to get some rest while she does, I am sure it will be a long night…

Jordan, Jason, Pig, and George

I did, Pat. They are both Midwest and they wanted like $35 for each plus 20 shipping last I checked!! Foster&Smith seems like the cheapest. About $57 for one 36" and one 42" with shipping. Right now I've got George in a crappy old metal one (that has a rusted tray) and Pig is in one with a blanket. I decided I better get new ones just because I don't like him in the rusty one or Pig without a tray. I went to another pet store today and they wanted $40 and $37. Crazy! Thanks for the ideas guys…

Hey guys!

A while ago I had my aunt's beagle for a week and she tore apart all three of my plastic kennel trays, does anyone know where to get new trays? I have asked around town and no pets stores have any ideas.

Thanks!

Jordan

Solid, so that we could put it on carpet :)

What kind of bottoms, if any can you get for the x-pens? Are there any brands in particular that make them?

I like the "if you get to play with your mouth I do" idea but would it make them have a bad association about you messing with their teeth??

We have always used a squirt bottle with water. We only had to squirt a couple of time and now "wanna get squirted" stops the biting.

Sharon-

Humans CAN get it. One day I was watching "mystery diagnosis" on discovery health and I was thinking "boy, that guy's symptoms sure sound like Fanconi." Sure enough it was :)

Hey Joey I don't know if you have found a place but we have a great lady just north of GR. Her name is Sam and her kennel's name is Hyer Luv. Her facilities are not basenji perfect only being that he fences are not super high, so if you have a climber or jumper it may not be the best place. For us it works perfectly because Piggy doesn't do either of those especially when she has other dogs to play with.

She is basenji experienced with others than Piggy. Piggy has spent a significant amount of time with her (about 3 weeks in the last 8 months or so). She loves Piggy to death and even lets Pig sleep in the bed with her when she is there. She is also very reasonable price-wise at $15 per night. For long periods it may be worth your drive over here. Other places I contacted and went for an interview were $30 and over and took in far more dogs than I could ever imagine them being able to adequately care for.

She was very thorough with the interview…we were there for over an hour the first time. She asked us to provide a detailed description of a typical day in our life so that she can keep her on schedule. She is very particular about making sure the temperaments of dogs that play together is appropriate. She also gives you a great deal of feedback when you pick them up and I really think she keeps our training up for us. Piggy comes home and is exhausted for days so I know she has gotten plenty of exercise. She also loves to go to Sam's and runs to the door when we ask, "wanna go to Sam's?" Sam and Fred go above and beyond and have even helped us out in a pinch many times and with advice for training and other dog-related issues. Once we had to take Piggy there with an injured foot from a dogpark incident and Sam and Fred took care of her injury impressively well.

She is well respected as a responsible ****er spaniel breeder and I do not feel that it interferes with her ability to care for our dog in any way. She is very strict about only having as many dogs as she is able to provide enough love and time for. I have run into other owners who have boarded with her and they seem to be equally as passionate about the care that she provides their furfriends too.

You can visit her website at: http://www.hyerluv.com/hyer/kennel.html

Other B owners I know have used camp bow wow and really liked it. I do like their facility but don't know much about the overnight care there. I know that there are some over your way. Over here it runs about $38 per night.

Best of luck!

Piggy only has problems pooping when she gets panicky too. For example if we leave her home in a crate and someone comes in the house but doesn't come down to see her or let her out she will do it. We can't put anything in her crate or she shreds it, we tried everything. For a while I was even buying fleece baby blankets at the dollar store and tossing them if she pooped. We gave up on that after a while. The mess was terrible, so I can relate to hours of cleanup… by the time you get her cleaned up and the crate.

We did some desensitizing and left for short periods like I described before, and that helped a lot. My friend that has a B went to the vet about her anxiety, hers would cry incessantly, and they actually gave her meds, prozac I think, for it. I think she tried it, but didn't think it worked enough to do it. Sounded crazy to me.

It hasn't happened in a while so we have been lucky. She has come to terms with her crate now and will once in a while go hang out in it by choice, so I know she doesn't hate it.

Have you tried one of those snuggle buddy things? I wonder if you could find some way to protect it if Darwin had an accident.

Best of luck and lots of patience!

Zeke is great! No wonder he is so hoarse!!!
No response from pig tonight on that one, but she is sleepy from the park today.

I was browsing BRAT dogs and noticed one that had scabs in his ears, does anyone know what this is from? That same dog had thyroid issues, is that the cause or is it a separate issue? Just curious…

I love reading you guys' puppy days of our lives. Its great :) We will have read tons of pointers by the time we get number two home.

We have done all that you talked about Pat, and feel very fortunate about things.

And yes, Nemo we do have to wait for that occasion.

That is so cute. We have been trying to get a good B500 video for months. We can't seem to get her bouncing off the backs of the couches (without touching the seat pad) which is the coolest part. I want to try to stand on the table next time and try get the aerial shot :) She also leaps the three feet directly over it from standing.

Zoni is a real cutie! BTW what is her birthdate?

I'm glad we aren't the only ones who let our B on the leather couch, we always get heck from people about it. We will just have an excuse to get something new faster than a person with a no-dog-on-leather policy :)

Its a long story but here goes the short version (surprising, I know). My ex-boyfriend and I got a basenji from Eric Williams and I fell in love with it. When we broke up I decided to start looking for one of my own. I found a pair that appeared perfect so I went to get them from Missouri after talking to the "breeder" on the phone for a couple of months. I was told they were raised only in their home, and were previously shown (both turned out to be untrue).Things seemed pretty good on the phone but when my sister and I got there it was a puppy mill (well over 100 dogs of 7 breeds and one couple caring for them), I am not going to throw the name into this story, but if you look at other threads I have participated on you can put it together. My sister and I decided we couldn't leave them there so we decided to take them with us. We had no commitment to them and could have turned our heads, but we didn't. We got them home and they had serious health (all which could be treated, worms, a fungus, etc, not genetic issues) and behavioral issues. Upon contacting the "breeder" to make them aware of everything we had encountered she stopped talking to me.

We weren't getting them as a breeding pair, though they had produced one other litter, and after all of that we certainly weren't going to do it. In two months we took them back to the vet and things were fine. My landlord and a couple of friends started asking if we were going to breed them and before we knew it we had already found buyers for most of the puppies through good friends and other people we trusted before we even thought much about it. Over the next couple of months we did what we thought was enough research (I know better now) and decided it was a good choice. We planned to keep one. I got a hold of both of the original breeders (the place we got them had gotten them from two separate places) and they confirmed the bloodlines and testing results and sent me all of the AKC info on each of their parents. So with their encouragement and that of my friends and an aunt, who had bred jack dogs for years, we decided to do it.

I was I know how you guys feel about this, and after being a part of this message board and becoming more involved in the basenji culture I am not proud of our decision either. However, what I am proud of is that each one of the puppies are all in great homes that we have remained in contact with and in the summer months we actually see most of them on a monthly basis at the park.

What happened to the parents you are asking, and I would too. Well like I said, we planned to keep one puppy and both of the parents. We worked for months with the parents even before they bred. We had a behaviorist come and work with them, and his assessment was that they had been abused, which we had always suspected from their behavior and a couple of scars on the male. We could not ever get the male potty trained, which the behaviorist attributed to his living outside his whole life. Then a couple of months after the last puppy went home, the unthinkable happened, the female aggressively lunged and bit one of my friends. Two months later she bit my husband. We took her to the vet and they suggested putting her down, that most rescues wouldn't take a dog with such a bite history. We wanted to keep them together and decided that we would look at other options until we found the right one. Eventually, we found a new home for them on a farm with a couple of other basenjis. It was the hardest thing I have had to do, but the best decision for them.

Again, I am not proud of what happened and I know it could have turned out worse than it did, which is why I don't throw the story up on the forums. From what we had researched at that point (which was not enough) it was not a bad decision to breed them. I don't regret it because they are all loved and in great homes with no health problems to date. I acknowledge that it wasn't "responsible breeding" but at that point I did not know any better (which is no excuse). So, if you have any other questions to ask about it, I will gladly answer them.

How cool, Nemo!
I got an e-mail back from her that there was one other non-show home that was interested, but that she thinks they may have gotten a pup already. Maybe we will get lucky and he will not go to the show home and the other will have already found a puppy.

Holy cow! My e-mail box is flooded, everyone seems to be passing my e-mails on. Its pretty great how many options we have to entertain now.

I feel like this is my basenji search diary :)

I have talked to Laura Mae Hesse about the possibility of a co-ownership of one of her boys, Frances. We are still entertaining that but I just don't think we have the time over the next year to commit to that. I am also not sure we want a boy we have to keep in-tact.

I also talked to Sue Joyner about one of her puppies that is supposed to go to a show home, but his teeth may not be quite up to par. He is black and white, which is our first choice in color, so I am looking forward to hearing back from her.

I also just got a e-mail from Michelle at Pandora and she has two brindle fosters that are not from her breedings but are from her bloodlines. I am waiting for more info from her on them.

So much info to sort through!

I will ask her the name in the next e-mail. I think it was more of a pet dog, but maybe Jeff did show it too, I don't know. She is waiting to hear back from Jeff to hear whether or not the dog is still available. I think she said that the owner was moving and that was why they were finding him a new home. Jeff is good friends with the current owner.

Great idea about leaving something behind, we will be sure to do that with him, maybe I will even bring a toy of Pig's too, so nothing is completely new.

I do think the idea of finding an adult is sounding more appealing since it will be less time consuming in the long run. I really like Dillon, but I also got an e-mail back from Sue at Klassic and she said they need to re-home a 4 year old that a friend has (so they know he was well taken care of) also in Cleveland. So maybe we will be going to visit both of them in a few weeks. What do you guys know about Klassic? There are lots of listings on OFA and she seems really nice from the e-mails.

Though I am really into the young adult idea, my husband isn't so keen on the idea of getting a "used dog" as he put it jokingly, but I think the point about saving money on wellness exams, second and third rounds of shots, etc. is . Not to mention the value of anything lost in the teething stage because we didn't pay enough attention to our stuff :) He'll soften as soon as he meets him.

Thanks, Pat!

We do have to get him neutered, but would anyway. There is a low cost place that all the vets rave about around here that does it for $65, so that isn't a problem.

I definitely feel comfort in the fact that if it really doesn't work we are not stuck with a stressful disaster on our hands.

I was thinking the whole puppy vs. adult issue…do you guys think you bond less with a dog that you get when it is older as compared to a puppy? Or in their long lifespan does it really all come out the same in the end?