Five is the Magic Number

Our BRAT Basenji, Asta, is finally a calm little guy. We got Asta, now five years old, three years ago from BRAT. As some of you may have read in this blog, he was a mess. He was anxious and frantic; he was nervous and very house destructive.

During the day, he was crated. If he weren't crated he would destroy the house. His favorite snack was a good hardbound book. He also liked paperbacks, down comforters, computer keyboards, electrical cords and all the other typical Basenji fare. He also ate the bottom of the cage, you know the plastic tray part...yum.

Since the beginning of the summer, we have been leaving him out of the cage and letting him stay out with Apollo, our ten year old Basenji. It started as a whim: what if we left him out? How long could he go without becoming house destructive?

We closed the bedroom and bathroom door and left Apollo and Asta to roam the rest of the apartment. It was a success.

Asta has had an excellent summer. Sure, he still pulls a good book of the shelf every once in a while, but he doesn't do it often. Eight times out of ten, the house is a clean as we left it in the morning. We even put the cage in the storage unit; that is how much he has improved.

I am in school this summer and I have been getting up very early. My favorite part of the day is the wee early morning when I am doing homework or finishing up my reading. Asta gets up with me and takes a nap on the couch. He never did that last summer.

Last summer, he would spin in counter clockwise circles and constantly be "investigating" something. I did not get much work done in the mornings last summer.

This summer he has really matured into a great, relatively chill, Basenji. We like to hypothesize that five the perfect age for a Basenji. They are a little more mature, a little more calm and comfortable, and a lot less house destructive.