to remain intact, we had to put away or at least out of his reach. Remote controls, shoes, food or food packaging, pretty much everything was fair game for Buddy to chew on – and these were lifelong tendencies, not just the puppy phase.

We always knew we wanted children, so one of our main concerns, even before we brought Buddy home, was how he would interact with our future children. We have no idea if this was the right thing to do, but wanted to “baby proof” Buddy as much as possible. We attempted to make sure he would be ok with a few things we suspected young children might subject him to. We made sure he was ok with being touched while he was eating, as well as having his food taken away (we would of course give it right back to him). We would also occasionally wake him up when he was sound asleep (thinking this would be something a child might do, and knowing this is an issue for some Basenjis). Maybe these things helped, or maybe we were just lucky (we now suspect it was the latter) but it turned out that Buddy was absolutely amazing with both our boys.

For 4 years, Buddy was our furry and energetic baby who got all our attention. After that, we had another baby, this one a bit less furry, and much louder. That’s when Josh was born.

Even though Buddy had been a wonderful, albeit mischievous dog, we were still concerned about how he’d behave having a newborn in the house 24/7. He had been great with babies and young children that our friends had brought over, so we were optimistic.

We had heard that bringing home a blanket smelling like the baby, before the baby was actually brought home, was a smart thing to do, so we did that. Then a day later we brought the actual baby home. Once again, we have no idea if the blanket trick helped, but when we did bring Josh home from the hospital, things went well. We brought Josh home in his car seat and placed him on the ground so that Buddy could meet his new brother at his own level and on his own terms. After some very cautious sniffing, Buddy seemed to understand that this new little guy was important to us, which meant that he was also important to him.

I’m not going to say it was easy having a Basenji and a newborn in the house, but at least the good news was that we had already baby proofed the house 4 years earlier for Buddy’s sake. With that said, there were definitely new things for Buddy to get into and disrupt. God forbid we should leave an unattended dirty diaper lying around. Fortunately we had only done that a few times, and even more fortunate, those were only diapers that had been #1ed. When Buddy would be lucky enough to find one of those dirty diapers he would shake them until they would violently explode, flinging urine soaked desiccant all over the room. There’s nothing like cleaning that up while you’re also exhausted from newborn related lack of sleep.

But it wasn’t all challenges, Buddy didn’t seem to be envious of the attention we gave Josh. If we were holding Josh on the couch or playing with him on the floor, Buddy would calmly sit next to us and just be present.

Two years later we repeated the same ceremony with the blanket and presentation of a new baby in a car seat on the floor. This time the baby was our youngest son, Liam. In the end we had the same result, with Buddy understanding that Liam too was his human brother.

As the kids grew older, they started playing with more and more toys. At this point we had two types of toys in the house, toys that had been chewed on and toys that had not been chewed on yet. Eventually 100% of all toys had felt the wrath of Buddy’s teeth. This was not something anyone was ever upset about, it was just accepted as inevitable, just like knowing the sun would rise again the next morning.

Perhaps there were a few exceptions to the “toys getting chewed up” rule. We did teach the boys from a very young age that if there was a special toy that they didn’t want to get chewed on, that they would need to put that toy away as soon as they were done playing with it. The boys knew this

After the kids got older and we got some of our time back, we tried to take Buddy to the dog park again, but he had become hit and miss in terms of getting along with the other dogs, so it was mainly back to neighborhood walks and inviting over select dogs who we knew Buddy would get along with. We’re also not sure if that transition to being a much pickier dog (in terms of who he got along with) is a Basenji thing or a Buddy thing, but it’s definitely something we remember going through with him.

One other piece of advice we have for Basenji parents is to set them up for success, or rather don’t set them up for failure. Don’t leave that piece of cake on the coffee table thinking this will be the one magical time that your Basenji won’t scarf it down at the first opportunity. Don’t forget to put away those brand new fuzzy slippers thinking your dog won’t shred THESE ones, unlike the 10 pairs that came before. The best attitude to have with a Basenji is that whatever bad thing they just did was your fault, because whatever it is that they did, you should have known they were going to do it(if you’re only going take one thing away from this article – this is it!).

Buddy lived with us for over 15 years and was deeply loved the entire time. He wasn’t the easiest dog to live with, but we wouldn’t have traded him for even the best behaved dog in the world.

After Buddy crossed the rainbow bridge we had a discussion about whether or not we’d get another dog. It was not a long discussion. Lana and the boys instantly said that yes, they wanted another furry addition to the family, and since their only experience had been with a Basenji, that’s what they wanted again.

Our one and only call when we were ready to set things into motion, was to Pat Fragassi. She helped us find Buddy all those years ago. Fortunately for us, she was planning on a Basenji litter with her kennel partner Jeff. It was about a year after we lost Buddy, that we brought Boomer home with us. Because we had experience with a male Basenji, we all thought it would be a good idea to get another male, and out of his 4 pup litter he was the only boy, so that made the decision very easy.

We tried the same tricks with Boomer as we had with Buddy in terms of food and waking him up from naps. That’s when it became very clear that Basenjis (just like other dogs) have their own unique personalities. While Boomer is totally fine with us touching him while he’s eating, or even taking away his food, he does not like to be bothered while he’s sleeping, or even just lounging around. It turned out that while Boomer is still a very loving and affectionate dog, he’s much more vocal about what he doesn’t want to put up with than Buddy. He loves to cuddle, but he wants to do it on his own terms. He also doesn’t mind being held, but sometimes gives a quiet growl when being picked up. There are also a select few things that Boomer will “resource guard”, such as bully sticks. That’s something that Buddy never did, but with Boomer we’ve learned to respect the signs when we see them. This is also something we’ve been working with him on, with indications of improvement.

One other difference between Buddy and Boomer is that while Boomer is an overall grumpier dog than Buddy was, he gets along great with all other dogs. He’s still young though, so this is something we’re not taking for granted, or as an absolute.

It’s now been just over 3 years with Boomer, and while he’s a different dog than Buddy, we love him just as much. Are Basenjis easy to live with? No they are not. We tell ourselves that their personalities and other positive traits make up for that, we tell ourselves this very often. One other thing we are constantly saying to each other is “first day with Boomer?” This is something we ask when one of us acts surprised that Boomer chewed on something, or in some other way shocked us with his highly questionable behavior (like eating a pen off my desk for the 178th time).

Now that the kids are older, there aren’t as many toys lying around, so there’s less for Boomer to chew on, but somehow he still finds his opportunities:, pens (he just can’t get enough of those pens!), socks, dirty laundry etc. With our boys getting older, things have become easier in terms of living with a Basenji, but there are times that all of us just want to sit on the couch in the evening and relax...but Boomer has other plans and starts to chew on something so that one of us has to get up and see what mischievous behavior he is getting into. We’re pretty sure that 90% of the time he’s doing this just to get attention, not to actually destroy something (that’s just a bonus for him).