I spent weeks researching different breeds of purebred, mongrel and mini dogs. I wanted one that was good for indoors, since I lived in a small duplex at the time. I didn’t want dog hair on all of my furniture, so some shedding was a must. He also lived on a busy street and lacked a fenced yard, so he needed a dog with low or normal energy levels. He wanted a proud-looking dog, with good posture and strong muscles, confident-looking, and generally good to his master. After weeks of searching, I found the Basenji. This dog seemed perfect to me.
I continued my research on the breed and learned some interesting things. They are not supposed to bark. They make a strange howling sound, known as a yodeling. They can be really stubborn, but always with good intentions. They have hair, not fur, so they will lose some on the floor and furniture, but they don’t shed their coat. They also clean themselves, so bathing is a bi-annual activity.
All of this seemed perfect, so my girlfriend and I drove across Missouri to buy one, for just over $600. From the moment we picked it up, we fell in love. The long road trip home was not the best experience, but it was over before we knew it. Then reality hit. I’m about to share with you exactly what I’ve been through with my Basenji, Sam, and what you can expect if you’re planning on buying one.
So they don’t bark, but they yodel? No. Not a yodel. Just a piercing howl that sounds like an old woman crying and screaming hysterically. Sam did this every night while we were trying to sleep, for literally over a month. Our neighbors hated us, remember, duplexes. My girlfriend and I lived there with my roommate. He could hardly bear to sleep there, so he stayed away as much as he could (good boy, huh?). This is not a typical puppy cry that he will hear from any young puppy while he is kennel training. This was the most horrible sound you can imagine coming from an animal, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, it starts crying even louder.
Sam was very playful as a puppy, which was to be expected. He had sharp teeth and didn’t enjoy his dog toys, he just wanted to chew us up, bite visitors, break furniture, chew baseboards, break his leash, the list goes on and on. You have to be on their case constantly. We couldn’t let him run loose in the house, because he would just run into another room and chew on things.
Another month of that, and a couple of cans of Keep-Away, and he finally learned to enjoy his dog toys a little more.
She is a little older now, she doesn’t cry at night. It’s a little quieter, so we don’t have to watch it 24/7. But he is, and he always has been, very stubborn. He knows when he does things he shouldn’t, and he’ll do them anyway, just to get us out of the meat and then try to get us to play with him. He doesn’t require much maintenance, but he does need a good hour of fetch and wrestling every day. Once we get past the puppy stage, he’s a really good dog. We’ve had a son since he came into our lives, and Sam gets along with the baby. Everything else is just like any dog, but these are the things that struck me as somewhat Basenji-specific.
It was tough for a few months, but now we wouldn’t trade him for any dog in the world.