Is a basenji right for you?

"The basenji is one half cat & three quarters monkey" ~ Nicholas Marsicano

While it is true that basenjis don't bark, they are not mute, and they are not stuffed animals. This is an exotic, always choreographed, brilliant imp of a creature. Basenjis are bed dogs.

This is a story I often tell to folks inquiring about getting a Basenji. It was told to me 20 something years ago by a Pharaoh Hound person. It's a lovely test of sorts & goes like this:

This handler raised a Basenji puppy for a client & her husband, she
said, absolutely hated this puppy.

One of the things that made him most angry was that the pup always stole the stick of butter from the table.

So he, fiendishly, added a liberal amount of jalapeno peppers
to some butter, reshaped it into a bar, placed this bar on the table &
waited.

Sure enough, said puppy grabbed it, and got the whole bar in her mouth, bowed down on her elbows and DID NOT REACT.

She only glared at him...

Then she dropped the butter & ran up the stairs AND PEED on HIS BED! The handler told me that she didn't know who would survive the chase that followed; around and around the house. Her husband finally cornered the little devil and said, "Gotcha!" and she marched past him and peed in his bedroom slipper..

Folks who laugh at this story pass the test for future Basenji households....

Susan & the unwoofs
Apu's Basenjis since 1973

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