Dennis Allen

HOW I LEARNED ABOUT BASENJI'S.

I was working for a guy painting and plastering and fixing his rentals.  He had three house's all next to each other. While I was scraping paint on the middle house. I heard some scuffling behind me, and on the other side of the fence, that ran around the first house, a group of smallish dogs had appeared. They were all Red and White little dogs with wrinkled brows, pointy ears.  They made me think they were wondering, "what  is that weird guy doing?" They would follow me along the fence. They were very quiet except for a yip or a little snorfle, as if they were saying, "You are in my space and I can not see what's you are doing!" They would follow me up and down the fence line most of the day except to go get a drink of water or take a poop. They ran so fast considering their size. When I ate lunch they really watched me carefully to make sure they missed NOTHING. The person who owned them came home early one afternoon and explained what they were and how they acted and why so quiet. She asked if I wanted to come over and meet them. I jumped the fence and met them and they all wanted in my lap after sniffing me very carefully (I think we had two Airdales at the time). She explained the voice box thing and the history behind the breed. She said she was going to breed them. She took them to vivsit on the weekends to Palm Desert to a friend who also was a Basenji person.

When I worked on her house they followed me around and got into everything I was using.  I spent a lot of time chasing them down to get back paint brushes and paint scrapers. Anything with a wood or plastic handle were the hot items to steal and run away with. Half the time the littlest one would grab and run without me hearing anything. When the rest ran off I knew to look and see what was missing, and go find it chewed up a little, or one of the others would take it and run off somewhere else!

I would spend more time chasing with them than working some days. The first house was so old that it was lath and plaster inside. I was on a ladder plastering and the littlest one was standing on the first rung waiting for me to come down, I guess.  Inside you would hear the rush of toe nails when they would start the racing around the house. They always ran on the some path, except during a chase, some one would cut the course to catch the leader, or become the leader. It was great to watch their antics and racing around. I have not thought about this in a long time, it makes me smile think how much fun they were to watch and play with. I need to go hug our bunch now.

That was thirty years ago - maybe more. When Tamara and I wanted to add a dog to our home, I remembered those little guys.  And that’s how our own personal basenji addiction began...

  Dennis & Tippy

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