Posts made by asharp319

My younger sister got a Besenji last winter (2013) and then a few months later decided it didn't really fit into her lifestyle, so I offered to add him to my pack so we could keep him in the family and she'd know he was taken care of. My husband and I already had 3 dogs, one 12 year old shephard mix, a 5 year old Mountain Feist, a 14 month old shephard mix, plus a three legged cat. Tyson was 7 mos. when we brought him home a few months ago. He quickly earned the name Sh*thead due to his intense desire to steal and chew whatever he can when we're not looking (as long as we're watching him he sticks to dog toys), plus whenever he had accidents in the house when we first brought him home, he would walk and pee/poo, making the mess much larger than necessary. He still does that but luckily in the backyard now. Anyways, I was really starting to entertain passing him to someone else because we've had him for a few months and some of his behaviors (chewing, stealing) don't seem to be subsiding. We kept trying to leave him out of his crate while we were out for short trips, since all the other dogs are fine, but we always returned to a mess of destruction. I felt bad always crating him when I was out of the house for any period of time and keeping him confined to certain areas of the house. Since finding this forum I've begun to see that I need to stop trying to change his behavior (because that's never going to work) and start adapting my life so that he can live with us and everyone can be happy. I also see that crating when unsupervised is very common, so I don't feel bad anymore. Those were the main things that were overshadowing his cuteness and craziness. Otherwise, he's BFF's with our 14 mo. shephard mix, Lucy, (Tyson is 9 mos.) and she is amazing off the leash. Since Tyson loves her so much he just follows her everywhere when we take them to the woods and let them off the leash. They play aaaaaalll the time, as soon as we crate them they pass out. He seems to pretty good in the Basenji world. Not a yodeler, but very affectionate towards me even though I've only had him for a couple months. Although, he has stood over my husbands feet and peed a couple times (also cause for the nickname). So thanks to the forum I am seeing his potential and I see some direction toward a happy life for both of us! In anecdotes, so far he has chewed my computer mouse, some wires controlling the AC unit in the backyard, the wall around a few outlets we were replacing got chewed to bits, remotes, car keys…I'm sure much more in the future, but we're learning to push in chairs (because he likes to reach desks and tables) and put things away!