Are you Smarter than a Basenji?

I've long heard stories of basenjis who outsmart their owners, and I must admit - my dogs are pretty smart. But, I'm a relatively intelligent human, and I always believed that certainly I should be able to outsmart mere dogs! Well, last night, I had my mind changed for me.

It's around 10pm, and I'm watching the season finale of my favorite TV series on DVD. I've been waiting FOREVER for it to come out on DVD, and I am absolutely riveted to the TV. Of course, like clockwork, as soon as it gets to the really good part, my two basenjis take out their rawhides and start wrestling around with them. It always amazes me how they know when the good part of every TV show or movie is coming so that they can be sure to start the B500 at that exact moment. Annoyed, I take their rawhides away and put them on the table, and return to my show. Not to be outdone, my little basenji girl Reef starts pacing around in circles and banging on the "potty bell" hanging on the kitchen door. Sighing, I finally pause the DVD and get up to let the dogs out. Biko dutifully follows me to the door and I let him out, but when I turn around and call Reef, she is nowhere to be found. I backtrack to the living room, where I find that my sneaky little dog has used the potty bell as a decoy and is in the process of stealing the rawhides off the table!

Now, I was pretty awed by her ingenuity in this, but even still I didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that she had set this all up just to fool me. However, when I finally managed to get her out the door (after she raced around in delight when she saw that she'd been caught red-handed with the rawhides), she didn't even have to pee! It was then that I knew for sure that I had been duped. So now, just like on the TV show "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader," I have to face the camera, and say publicly: "I am not smarter than a basenji!"