Back to Doglog
April 4, 1996

The Chase

Faster than a speeding whippet, able to clear tall couches with a single bound, look off the wall, its a bird, its a plane, its basenji-man!

There is no way to catch a running basenji by pursuit. The only way is to go the opposite direction. And even then you have to be part of his pack. Or a cat.

If you stop. If you gawk at something on the ground. If you back up, squeal, make a circle around it. If you convince that distant fleeing basenji that you've found the most interesting thing on earth, then he'll come and check it out. And you HAVE to ignore him until he is right there, and you had better be successful when you nab him because this little trick isn't going to work sequentially twice in a row.

Recently our last chase--since it was only one B and 3 of us, we went in the other direction and it worked. Fortunately the park is huge, and we looked like we were doing something interesting; and fortunately also we've been hitting different baseball fields for a run every day. He followed us in his fashion--actually ran HUGE circles around us. We've been going to a baseball field near our house, one on the grounds of the kids' elementary school, several at a local park and one at Josh's high school.

Yesterday the couch was too crowded for Rafi to fit in his favorite corner. So he sniffed thru the floor till he found one of Lauren's toys, and walked across the room to the OTHER couch to settle down for a little chew session. Lauren went after her toy. As soon as she was secure on the other couch, Rafi abandoned her toy and shot across the room to the corner she'd vacated--his corner.

And today when we got home from our yearly big family thing, Rafi released from his crate:

welcomed everyone home
dragged out his blue yeti rug
dragged out his untouched chewies
(and as soon as I sat down)
unsnapped the water dish from his kennel door and
brought me the water dish to fill.