Kodi was our first basenji and as such he was our greatest teacher. We learned quickly that there are dogs and then there are basenjis. Most of what we learned was by trial and error, mainly by errors. Kodi patiently put up with us humans.
We learned the ways of the basenji and fell in love the breed. We learned the loyality and independent nature. We learned the playful ways and the serous nature. Kodi quickly became a great joy in our lives. He quickly became the rival and close companion of our other dog, Tippy, a Shetland Sheepdog.
Kodi never became the show dog that we had hoped for. His developement was extremely slow and he never gained the necessary weight. At first we felt and were told that his lineage was "slow developing". Finally, the breeder that sold him to us told us to neuter him. He would never be used for breeding. We were given (no cost) a second basenji (Wendi) as a replacement as a show dog. Note: This is guartentee of "show quality" from a very good breeder. Kodi was retired as a "pet" to live with us for the rest of his life.
About a year later, the same breeder notified us that Kodi's father had contracted Fanconi and so had several of his off-spring. Fanconi is a kidney disease and in those days was almost always fatal. (the owner of Kodi's dad may not have known, but in any case did not inform our breeder of the problem) We were told to watch Kodi carefully. After a while, we started noticing the tell tale symtoms. we took him to our Veterian and it was confirmed. We imediately started an agressive treatment program dealing with a doctor back East that had some very promising results with his basenji. After almost a year, we finally faced the fact that Kodi wasn't so lucky. Fanconi is a very slow and painful death. Kodi was euthanized to save him from further suffering. He had taught us a very hard lesson about proper health screening and proper breeding. Kodi fortunally was never used in breeding and therefore did not cause anyone else to suffer, as it believed that the disease is inherted. There are still basenji breeders that don't health screen before breeding. We had learned better, our final lesson from our basenji teacher.
Note: If you want to know more about diseases that effect the basenji, feel free to e-mail us below.
Click on the above Egyptian writing (hieroglyphic) to find out if you are right. ~grin~ It is the only way that you will learn about them and you will see their photo, too.
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