yes and we have visited the breeder on serveral occasions prior to and after getting her and this animals are all quite calm and relaxed, that is also why it is so odd to us… We don't overstimulate her or make her 'crazy..." i Don't think

We have a 9 month old Basenji girl named… Kevin. We have mapped out her behavior issues and they are as such:

1. Still gets overly excited when people come to visit. She will be loving and ears back when the guests first arrive. And once guests are relaxed out come her teeth... She doesn't BITE she Mouths... If she gets to excited she will Mouth a little harder than other times... but eventually we have to crate her each time as she just doesn't stop. We try to distract with a game or with exercise and treats but that only works occassionally. Her favorite toy "Hippy" is used on occasion with a modicum of success.

2. She licks herself like crazy... I mean LIKE ALL THE TIME. Lick-lick-lick-lick... that is all we hear her doing... I know a clean dog is great but MY GOD!! Any ideas here?!

3. If she is sleeping on me and my lady tries to pick her up to crate her she snarrles and growls and will absolutely try to bit and is extremely vocals.. sounds like rubble-rubble-rubble, but LOTS of noise and teeth showing and again will certainly try to bite and will if you let her... and visa versa if she is sleeping on my lady and I try to move her.... Dominant much?!

4. She (Kevin) for the first time ever has chewed up not only our bed spread in the dead center of the bed but also a very expensive couch cushion, that I flipped when she tore it up 3 days again and today she tore up the other side...... This has never been something she has done (aside from her bed liners in the cage, but those go back to Pet Smart within 30 days and get an exchange so that has been an easy fix) and it has been three times now in the last week on OUR really nice stuff.

5. Loves to steal our socks and underwear and run around with it (since she was a baby she knows it gets a rise out of us so I am pretty sure I don't know how to NOT get a rise from this?). Now I know that if we don't go after her she would relax with it because it doesn't 'get our goat' but she has ruined too much stuff when we simply try to ignore it.

6. When she want to play we will but we make it on OUR terms not hers...when we want to stop, well that is when the mouthing starts up and we again... try to ignore it and she will simply go after any extremity she can... so she will go to time out.

We walk her nearly everyday. We also take her rock climbing with us when we go and we can even take her off leash and she is VERY good about coming when called when we are in the mountains... However for some reason she doesn't show that same respect to us when we are in the house... hummm..

SO we have a few major issues that have cropped up or escalated over the last few weeks and want to get right on this stuff... Only problem is that a Behaviorlist is not in our price bracket... I have trained two dogs in my life with perfect results but this breed perplexes me... Any help or additional info I can get you for help would be appreciated.

We live in Colorado near Denver so if you know of anything please let us know.