Basenji Basics
The dogs of the Stone Age were small foxy fellows, who gathered around the first campfires. As ancient man went from place to place about his business, they followed at a respectful distance … probably attracted by occasional handouts, possibly because they felt an affinity to him. The first dogs, according to paleontologists, were very like Basenjis, and there are scientific reasons for supposing that the Basenji was this “Canis Palustrus” of prehistoric times.
The Basenji made an appearance in civilization at the dawn of history. Brought down the Nile as tribute by people from Central Africa, he was a palace dog of the pharaohs so long ago that he watched the pyramids being built. Pictures in bas-relief and sculptured in stone as fat back as 4000 BC, the Basenji is shown both as a hunter and as a favoured hose pet lying under pharaoh’s chair. He was found in Mesopotamian many centuries later. The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a bronze statue of a man and a Basenji-like dog, inkling curled tail and wrinkled forehead. This is identified as Babylonian, 1500 BC. Ancient empires, crumbling, disappeared along with the Basenji, and without a trace. Only as recently as the latter half of the 19th Century was he rediscovered in his original habitat – the headwaters of both the Nile and the Congo – in the heart of Africa. There, Basenjis are still hunting dogs of native tribes, and so necessary are they to the Pygmies that a wife can be purchased for less than a Basenji.
English nobility rediscovered these little dogs during their hunting expeditions. For fifty years, the British made many attempts to bring Basenjis to England, but they were not successfully acclimated there until 1937. At the same time, a pair was brought to America.
The Basenji does not bark. This unusual characteristic does not seem too unusual when you remember that original canines – wolves, coyotes, and jackals – don’t bark, either. Since the Basenji is silent on the trail, the Congolese, as did the ancients, required him to wear a hinting bell so they could trail him. Though he doesn’t “BOW_WOW_WOW”, the Basenji is not mute, and can make all the other sounds dogs make: growls, shines, yips, and howls. He has, in addition, an unusual sound called a “yodel!” that he uses when he is happy.
Sleek short coat, pricked ears, and curly tail are Basenji trademarks, Wrinkles appear on the forehead, giving a questioning look; however, he actually knows all the answers. An elegant, deer-like little fellow, he averages 40-43 cm in height at the shoulders and 9.5 to 11 kg in weight. Colour-coded red, black, black with tan trimming (tri-colour), he always has white on the feet, chest and tail tip. Some have more white than other, sometimes with a blaze on the face, full collar, and full white legs. His short coat is unique in that it has no doggy odor, and he keeps immaculate without being bathed for months.
The Basenji is happy to fit his mood to those he loves. – yet he is a proud dog always, not bowing and scraping. He is a staunch believer in personal and property rights. The silent hunter is also a silent watch dog. A sound outside brings him noiselessly to the door, to await an intruder. He will give the housebreaker a rough time. Owners will tetify to his phenomenal intelligence, his inventiveness, his curiosity, and his clownish sense of humor. He is a quite, satisfied dog when desired. Yet no dog enjoys play more, whether in the home of the field. He will roughhouse and race. However, when his owner is ready to call it quits, the little Basenji is content to lie at the feet of his master just as his forbearers did thousand of years ago in the courts of Ancient Egypt, his winkled forehead imparting an anxious expression to his face – the look of one who, having known man from the beginning, is terribly worried about the outcome.