JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE

... TO GROW BACK IN THE DESERT

Yes, it's true. Nailah's a land shark.

Ivan’s New Diet

Ivan visited the vet for titers and routine blood work the first of April. On April third we received the results. The titers showed sufficient immunity levels so he doesn’t need boosters for parvo & distemper.  However, his blood work showed some elevated kidney levels.  Ivan’s kind pediatrician explained this was cause for concern but not panic. While I tried to breathe and not panic, she said he needs a low protein diet and encouraged us to get him to drink more water. She told us protein and phosphorous are the things to avoid as much as possible.

We cook for Ivan so we visited a veterinary nutritionist on April 8 to get a lower protein diet.  The veterinary nutritionist proclaimed Ivan very handsome and gave us some basic information on protein, phosphorus, and kidneys.

Healthy kidneys can easily filter protein waste, which is removed from the body in urine. Unhealthy kidneys lose the ability to remove protein waste. A reduced-protein diet helps limit the amount of waste that builds up in the blood, and may slow down the progression of kidney disease.

The veterinary nutritionist sent us a low protein diet a couple of days later. Some of the changes include replacing some of the chicken in his diet with pasta and using the Canine-K version of the Balance-It supplement.

Ivan is being a very good boy about this diet change. We serve his new diet mixed with water, and he eats this soupy concoction with gusto. He and Dasa get dishes of water laced with chicken broth a couple of times a day. I present this with enthusiasm, and they dive in, licking their dishes clean. (Every time this happens I feel an odd pang that my children get so excited about water with a dash of chicken broth, as though they are orphans starving in the wilderness.)

Blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine are some of the blood tests that measure protein waste and assesses how much the kidneys are working. In April Ivan’s BUN was 61 and his creatinine was 2.2, both above normal. There are a lot of other numbers to consider and it’s a lot to assimilate.
He’s been eating the new low protein diet for a couple of weeks and drinking additional water with sploops of chicken broth. The first week of May they retested Ivan’s kidney levels. The BUN is now 27, in the normal range, and while the creatinine is still high, it decreased ever so slightly to 2.1  Ivan is full of energy, races through the house with his teddy, roodles impatiently for food, destroys paper with great élan, and trots happily down the street on his walks.

When we received the results of the May blood test, I took a deep breath and thought, OK, it hasn’t gotten worse. I can breathe for three more months until the next test. I’m going to take a lot of deep breaths and play with my puppy boy.

ADD and OCD Basenjis

Does anybody else have an ADD basenji? I have an ADD one and an OCD one. Seamus likes everything " just so" - all his food on my bed, all his toys in his basket, his usual pee spots, etc. Nina, on the other hand, takes 100 years to eat, if she is interrupted at all. When I take her out, it's a never-ending journey to find "THE spot" to pee...BUT if the wind blows, or a car passes, or a door opens a block away, or a bird flies over head, or a dog barks in the distance....You get the idea. She will stop mid-squat and start searching all over again! And at 5:30am, my patience is thin. I'm usually in my jammies. And if I don't allow her to find HER spot, she WILL go on the rug as soon as I leave the room when we go inside.

~ Mandy Hazen

ADD Nina

OCD Seamus

New Available BRATs: Anubis and Winston

Name: Anubis
Dog State: Indiana
DOB: 1/1/2008
Gender: Male
Color: Tricolor
Weight: 23

Anubis is a four-year-old tri-colored Basenji boy who is looking for his forever home. Anubis does very well with the resident dogs in his foster home, both male and female. He also did very well when he went to the groomer, when he met cats at the groomer's, and on car rides and leash walks. Anubis loves attention. He likes being part of the group, he does not like to be crated and he has a great temperament.

Click HERE to read more about Anubis!

Name: Winston
Dog State: Idaho
DOB: 9/10/2011
Gender: Male
Color: Brindle
Weight: 20


Winston is intelligent, curious and a very energetic boy. He likes to play with his foster sister, chew toys, watching out the windows, climbing up on couches, being in the kitchen when there's cooking going on, standing up on this hind legs to peek over the counters to watch what you're doing, destroying tissues, digging in purses, and is fascinated with smelly shoes and wet towels.

Click HERE to read more about Winston!

Considering a rescue Basenji? Please check out the main BRAT page, where there are many more B's waiting for their perfect match!

I am NOT Smarter than a Basenji!

Yes, the Battle of the Water Bowls continues.  It's a match of wits between myself, a fairly intelligent human, and two crafty little basenjis, and I'm embarrassed to say that I think the basenjis are winning.  As of my last post, http://basenjirescue.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-missing-water-bowl-continued.html, the dogs were taking their water bowl out the dog door and hiding it in the backyard every day while I'm at work, leaving a nice big puddle of water with delicate little pawprints through it on the kitchen floor.  I still have no idea why they do this, but recently I'm starting to wonder if they think of their water bowl as a toy, or maybe a security blanket? 

One day, I came home from work early and caught Biko in the act of water bowl espionage.  The funny thing was, he wouldn't put his water bowl down!  For an hour, he carried it around the house like it was a favorite toy or a security blanket, eventually hiding it in his favorite dog bed atop the living room couch.  I just couldn't stop laughing!

Amusing as it was to learn that Biko thinks of his water bowl as a security blanket, I was still tired of mopping up the kitchen every day, so I decided to try a different tactic.  I purchased a "gravity water bowl" for $12 from Petco, which I imagined would be too top-heavy for them to drag out the dog door. But of course, the dogs outsmarted me again - after two days of leaving it untouched, on the third day I came home to find the water bottle top overturned on the kitchen floor, spilling out water, and the silver plastic bowl was outside in the yard underneath their favorite bush.  Foiled again, by two little dogs!

Finally, in a last-ditch effort to try and outsmart my two sly pups, I found a $2 metal water bowl with a generously sloped rim and a flat bottom edge, which (I hoped) would make it very difficult for the dogs to pick up and/or carry outside through the dog door.  For about a week the bowl was untouched and I declared victory, mentally congratulating myself on being smarter than my dogs.  But then, alas, I came home one day to find that although they can't seem to pick up this bowl and get it out the door, they still can enjoy the sport of sliding it around the kitchen floor and spilling all the water out of it. 

So in the end, I think it's now official:  I'm ready to concede defeat.  I am NOT smarter than a basenji!

Year Three Begins

Cinco de Mayo was never that important of a holiday for me until two years ago when I responded to a call from Ray Eckart of BRAT to take in two basenjis in a desperate situation.  We agreed that it would be just for a few days until we could find them a foster home.  I had lost my beloved basenji Bow barely a month early after a grueling year's battle with brain tumors.  I had planned to give myself six months to a year before ever considering adopting another basenji, and I wanted to really think it out and find the perfect basenji.

It was clear that the two I picked up at the animal shelter in Solano County had great potential.  Their names were Shaka and "Cry Baby".  When I posted about them here, the most common comment was "Cry Baby needs a new name!"  That didn't take long.  Within a couple of weeks it just seemed right to call her Audrey, like the various characters Audrey Hepburn played where a little frightened ragamuffin turns into a sawn.  Audrey was the true ragamuffin basenji -- a malnourished girl who obviously had been nursing puppies just weeks or days before she arrived.  Frightened of everything.  She hid under the passenger seat all the way on the way back to San Francisco.  Her coat was ragged, matted, uneven, so light in color it was hard to think of her as a "red and white".  Shaka was what he is today -- confident, gregarious, a little pushy for affection.  The first night "Cry Baby" had a terrible kennel cough.  Her situation pulled my heart strings, but I told myself I couldn't taken on another sick basenji after all I had gone through with Bow.

I had to go on a business trip within a few days, and Gerald Lane took them on for a few days and handled their spay and neuter work.  In less than I week they had grown on me, and I decided that if a foster did not emerge and the vet found no serious illnesses, I might consider fostering them for a while.   My vet did a thorough examination and said that both were the picture of health.  Audrey just needed to gain some weight, have a healthier diet and a little TLC.

A month passed, and the word "foster" was soon leaving my vocabulary.  They were definitely not the perfect basenjis -- lots of pillow and other chewing, a challenge to walk together, a challenge to get them to cooperate with each other.  But it was clear that we were perfect for each other.

It is hard to believe two years have passed and how little Shaka has changed and how "Cry Baby" has so fulfilled her new name as Audrey -- the most loving, outgoing, fun-loving basenji you could meet.  She still has her fears -- people in dark clothes, soccer games, skate boards, people walking behind her. But with people she knows and loves, she could not be more confident.

It has been a wonderful two years.  As I look back, I can't help being sad that we lost Ray Eckart who was such a support in our journey.  His calm support, witty sense of humor, and ability to always find a solution were crucial to the success of Audrey and Shaka.  It makes me want to do more for BRAT and the next basenjis needing help.  Shaka and Audrey were fortunate to come into BRAT, and every basenji deserves to find an equally loving home.

(Basenji) Life Imitates Art

It has been said that art imitates life, but sometimes the opposite is true. Here is Ruby's take on the subject.

1)  Edgar Degas: The Star (1876-1877)

Ruby:

2)  Theo van Rysselberghe:  Woman in a Mirror

Ruby:

3)  Pablo Picasso: Femande with a Black Mantilla (1905)

Ruby:

4)  Lady with a Boa   (unknown -  possibly Alice Neave)

Ruby:

5)  Andrew Wyeth:  Christina's World

Ruby:

6) Poster of Rod Steiger in movie 'Illustrated Man'

Ruby:

7)  Johannes Vermeer: Girl with a Pearl Earring

Ruby:
(Okay, this is a bit of a stretch, I admit. Ruby put up with a lot from me, but even she wouldn't have tolerated a pearl earring! I asked her, but she just covered up her head and went back to sleep.)

When Did You Discover Basenjis?

Do you remember the first time you saw a basenji?  Did you stumble across one by accident, fall in love with a friend’s basenji or see one at a dog show?

I remember when I first learned of basenjis. I was in elementary school entertaining myself with some extra reading projects during quiet time.  (I suppose my poor teacher was desperate for quiet, as I received the “whispers too much in class” comment on nearly every report card of my elementary school career.)  I remember this particular story involved someone who accused his neighbor’s dog of barking all night. This was proven to be untrue because the neighbor had a basenji, “a dog who didn’t bark.”  I didn’t guess this answer because I’d never heard of a basenji. Little did I know at the time that I would someday be owned by a couple of these intriguing little creatures.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when I first saw a photo of a basenji, although the first time I saw real live basenjis was when we stopped at a breeder’s house and were surrounded by three to four month old puppies who crowded around us, nibbling my shoelaces and examining the design on my t-shirt. Eric grew up with basenjis so he was already under the spell. This was my first exposure to the magic, and I was smitten. 

I delight in showing photos of our Munchkins. I love to tell about their charming personality quirks and, I confess, I enjoy the looks of disbelief when I tell about their especially endearing qualities, including the decimation of books and most forms of paper.  I use the flimsiest excuse to pull out photos and tell about our amazing, intelligent, cat-like, graceful, enchanting, curly-tailed imps. 

Our neighbors know us as the people with those little African dogs.  It’s wonderful to walk down the street and overhear them tell visitors that our dogs don’t bark, and their tails “just come that way.”  We smile and wave and continue down the street with our little African dogs with the naturally curly tails.