It's a slow process, be patient and consistent with her. We adopted Bolt 6 years ago, he's 12 y/o and 3/4 Africain. We don't know his history, but at some point he got into a dog fight. He has the scars to prove it. When we walk, there are certain dogs that will trigger a violent reaction from him. Over the years I've gotten very good at reading other people, and how they walk their dogs, plus reading their dog's body language. A high straight up tail tightly wagging will send him off the rails. I've worked extensively with him to the point that he is manageable when he sees other dogs. I usually make him sit, or give as wide a distance as I can allow. BUT, he is a biter, so I'm extremely cautious when I'm around other people. All bets are off if that other dog is not leashed!! It does get better, and yes you can teach an older dog new behaviors, I certainly did.
What kind of activities/sports..
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..do you undertake with your Basenji? Why? And how are you both doing?
I think it would be nice to hear from eachother what kind of activities/sports we do to keep ourselves busy
(Especially because 'they' often say B's are "untrainable".. which of course, isn't true ;))Just some options.. (maybe nice for a poll…? ;))
Obedience, show training, flyball, hunting, LC, track racing, agility, Rally-O, doggy dance, frisbee, dock diving... You name it!
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Zest, the superstar in training, is following the pawprints of her brothers and doing conformation, LC and agility. She hasn't started doing any training for therapy work, but she will. And starting on Friday, she and I are taking a doggy dance class. How is she doing? Well this past weekend she Q'd 2 out of 4 runs. She was a little overwhelmed on Sat, but Sunday she came back and Q'd in both of her runs. So we had a good weekend.
The boyz, Digital the brindlewonderkid and Jet the try-ing, still do therapy visits, but at 13 and 12, they are really retired from everything else. But both have titles in conformation, agility, LC, therapy and RallyO.
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I forgot..:
Tillo and I train agility on Wednesday and obedience on Saturday. We started with obedience when Tillo was still a sweet little puppy and he really liked it, especially when there were agility tunnels etc involved… So.. That's why I decided to try out agility.. First I was a bit afraid to stand there between shepherds (were I train are a lot of Belgian shepherds), but Tillo suprised me! I emailed twice to make sure if they were up for a Basenji challenge.. and the trainers still tease me because of that
But I think that little red and white curly tailed wrinkle face suprised them too In the Netherlands there are no official Lure coursing and track racing competitions for Basenjis, but in the summer we train track racing on Saturday and we'll go lure coursing on Tuesday. (the trainings aren't every week)
Our last activity is show training.. But that's also on Wednesday, after agility.. so we go once every 4-5 weeks.. Now with all the snow we haven't got agility training.. so we can go to show training more frequent. (although Tillo prefers agility!)
I would love to try out Frisbee. We had a short training session last summer and I think Tillo would enjoy this as well.. I would also love to try Rally-O, but that's at the same time as agility training... so.. not this year
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Zest, the superstar in training, is following the pawprints of her brothers and doing conformation, LC and agility. She hasn't started doing any training for therapy work, but she will. And starting on Friday, she and I are taking a doggy dance class. How is she doing? Well this past weekend she Q'd 2 out of 4 runs. She was a little overwhelmed on Sat, but Sunday she came back and Q'd in both of her runs. So we had a good weekend.
The boyz, Digital the brindlewonderkid and Jet the try-ing, still do therapy visits, but at 13 and 12, they are really retired from everything else. But both have titles in conformation, agility, LC, therapy and RallyO.
Sounds great! I always love to hear about your brindlewonderkid and of course your other stars :D!
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For competition my dogs have done Conformation, Lure Coursing, Sprint Racing both straight and oval, and Rally-O. For fun we have done Agility and just starting Nosework and always basic manners stuff.
As for how we are doing, Nicky is the only one I have titled in rally-o but that is mostly just a matter of working enough with everyone and then finding the time to compete when they are actually practicing it regularly. In lure coursing, the last I saw Sophie was #9 in ASFA for 2009 and Rally was #19. In LGRA Rio was #9 and Sophie #12 for 2009. In conformation, we are still working on finishing Rio and Sophie.
In the just for fun stuff, I have had to take a break from agility for now. We have just started doing some nosework which I think they will have a blast with and we may eventually get to competition level in at some point.
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"Obedience, show training, flyball, hunting, LC, track racing, agility, Rally-O, doggy dance, frisbee, dock diving… You name it! "
The only things I have not tried are flyball, doggy dance, frisbee and dock diving (assuming throwing a stick into the ocean and watching your dogs jump in to retrieve it does not count:).
In addition to obedience, rally, agility, coursing, racing, and conformation I have tried tracking as well; with tracking being the only one I have not tried to title in after I decided I could not risk the health of my dogs (can you say Valley Fever, rattlers, coyotes, bobact, mountain lions, etc. etc) - besides I do not have the time to do everything. Even now, I am having to pick and choose and several events are falling by the wayside.
As for success? Yes, I think I have been rather successful in every venue I have pursued and titled in.
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In addition to obedience, rally, agility, coursing, racing, and conformation I have tried tracking as well; with tracking being the only one I have not tried to title in after I decided I could not risk the health of my dogs (can you say Valley Fever, rattlers, coyotes, bobact, mountain lions, etc. etc) - besides I do not have the time to do everything. Even now, I am having to pick and choose and several events are falling by the wayside.
Nosework is a nice alternative to tracking though it is only just getting started right now. Not that you have a lot of free time to add a new event but if you wanted to do scent work of some sort this seems to be a good way to do it without the other risks.
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Track Racing? I didn't know that was a sport for Basenji's. I had read somewhere, a long time ago, that the Basenji is the fastest breed of it's size rang, so I guess that would make sense to race them… just never heard it done. Are there any places in the central Texas area that I can go see some of these sports in action? I've tried looking online but nothing comes up. I would like to try teaching my pair Lure Coursing. Any training tips on that? What is a good age? And how old is too old?
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I think the closest racing to you would be McKinney TX which is pretty far. There is LC several times a yr in Hutto and Florence which should be pretty close to you. We are coming down to TX the first weekend in April for AKC LC, in I believe Hutto. TX heat pretty much ends coursing by the end of May. We plan our vacations to sites that have coursing in the hot weather and camp for a week taking in 2 weekends of events.
We start our pups on practice runs at 6 months of age, and do practices with competition once they have that down. Trog has cousins that are still coursing at age 11, all depends on the conditioning of the dog and thier interest.
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This web site from the Alamo area whippet club lists all events in TX/OK/AR/LA. There is quite a bit in the fall that we will be bringing our two basenjis down to run. They love to run and are good cert dogs and practice dogs for other basenjis.
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Thanks Lisa, I don't think I will be home by the beginning of April, I'm scheduled to come home around the middle to the end of April, but perhaps my wife could meet up with you. She can get some pointers and get some great pictures for me…
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I spent 2 tours at Ft. Hood, know how busy you can be. Plenty of fall coursing in the area too. I got my first two basenjis in Tx back in 86/87.
