Who's Answering The Phone

My first basenji Cairo was a challenge for even the most seasoned Basenji owners. Take every basenji trait good and bad and mutlitply it by 10 and that was Cairo. He was stuborn, aloof, high energy, loving, scary smart.. more like a person smart vs dog smart. A master thief, master counter serfer, master paper shredder, master yodler, and soooooooo comical.

After much trial and error, help help help phone calls, patience and laughter Cairo developed into the most amazing dog. He passed at 15 1/2 years old on New Years Eve 3 years ago but i thought you would all enjoy a story of one of his classic antics i shared with Basenji Companions in 1995.

WHO's ANSWERING THE PHONE? April 1995

Cairo, our 3-year old male has always been very focused and demanding. When he wants something he will do whatever it takes to get your attention. His evening walk is on the top of his "must do's. His energy level was so high that we would take him to a fenced in baseball field and have every dog owner that walked by come join us to play. He would wear every dog down within 5 minutes pulling them by the scruff of their necks as if to say "get up off your lazy butts! We would have to stay there between 2-3 hours to wear him down. If we didn't he would be a terror in the house.

About a year ago we decided to make the investment and fence in our property and install a doggie door. We figured it would give him a chance to run and play with his sister Shayna and give us the flexibility of not having to walk him or take him to the park every night. That's what we thought...Cairo had a different agenda. The backyard was great but he liked to get out and explore!

At first when he wanted to go out he would try to get our attention by pulling on our sleeve or pants. When he figured out that this wasn't working he got more creative. First it was opening up the cabinet to the entertainment center and gleefully pulling out one by one, anything he could get his mouth or paws on. He would run down the hallway with his choosen prize with hopes to get us off the couch. We removed the handles from the cabinet and left a piece of masking tape at the top so we could pull it open. He figured out to do the same. He would grab the tape and pull open the cabinet, remove everything and run away with his prize.

When we removed the tape so he couldn't open the cabinet he moved on to the CD rack. He would walk over to it, turn his head and look at us with his defiant "dare me" look , punch the CD's with his paw so they flew all over, steal one and run out of the room.

One day he made the connection that the # 1 reason we weren't responding to him was we were typically on the telephone. The next few weeks he started jumping up on the parlor table, grabbing the reciever, jumping down and running down the hallway with it. We took that phone away, bought a wall mount phone. That didn't deter him. He would walk on the back of the couch and use his amazing "ejacto paw" (he could stretch that paw to incredible lengths to counter surf) to knock the reciever down. He would jump down and grab the reciever and run down the hallway with it.

One day my husband was on the phone and Cairo was going through his normal "i want to go out" antics. Lloyd was ignoring him. He disappeared out of the room. After a couple of minutes Lloyd heard the reciever come off the hook. Thinking it was me, Lloyd called out that he was on the phone. When there was no response he stormed into the other room to tell me to get off. There was Cairo, lying down with the receiver between his paws, cocking his head at the thing voices had previously been coming out of and enjoying what would become his new obsession.

The best came one day when i was on the phone with a friend. Cairo was bugging me to take him out and i kept telling him soon. When I hung up the phone, he got excited and ran to the door. To his dismay, within seconds it rang again. As it was ringing, he spun around like Regan from the Exorcist and bolted upstairs. I picked up the phone , started talking to my mom. A few seconds later there seemed to be a crackling, static sound. My mom thought it was her phone having problems. I assured her the noise wasn't her phone but Cairo. "What do you mean Cairo" she responded. I told her he ran upstairs when the phone rang and he probally took the reciever off the hook in the other room. She couldn't believe me when i told her he takes the phone off the hook if we are ignoring him and he wants to go out. She insisted it was her phone. I told her to hang on and i would go upstairs and look. As suspected, there was my little angel, reciever between his paws, knocking it around, looking at me with that angelic face as if to say "is there something wrong mom?"

I came back downstairs to assure her it was Cairo and that i had to go. Any dog who can answer the phone when it rings deserves to get his way when he wants to go out!

(Shayna & Cairo - The Twins)