The Rip Van Wrinkler,
Volume XIV, Issue 1, Febraury

Page 8 <Previous Page Next Page>

Child New with Dogs / Dogs New with Children

by Yvonne ‘t Mannetje
with photos by Yvonne as well

more by Yvonne - Basenji Intelligence

Maxim, the 5 year old son of my art teacher Mila, has no experi-ence with doggies at all.  My Basenji's have almost no experience with kids....  So we decided it would be a win-win situation and they came over today. 

They all fell in love at first sight!!!

Dana loved playing with Maxim, Ch'ami was very interested in the "sounds" Maxim made and Maxim was obsessed by the B's "billen" (bottom) and the fact they sit on it. He thought that was hilarious.

When it was time to go home again ... Maxim burst into tears ... and only stopped when I made him promise that he would come back very soon.

How did I introduce them, well, I kept Maxim on the lead J to be on the safe side. Seriously, I held his hand very tight, did not let go, and let the dogs run free, so they could get to know Maxim.  My dogs are much more relaxed and open if they are not on leash. And Maxim didn't seem to care.

I very closely watched all of them, knowing Ch'ami is the one who may not accept every thing.  Ch'ami's body language is very easy for me to read, so no problem at all.  I took the chance to teach Maxim how to deal with a dog, the dos and don'ts and Dana helped me with that.  She is so lovely and easygoing.  When she doesn't like "the game," she takes a bit of a distance. It went great! Mila asked me to bring the dogs over one day to Maxim's school, so the children can meet and greet (and learn). Nice project, need helping hands with that one! And courage.  Dana no problem, Ch'ami I am not sure how he will react to so many children... {Ed.  Yvonne, please report to us about the school visit!}

I’d like to share with you what happened today. 

When I vacuum our living room, and the sun is shining, my watch sometimes catches the sunlight when I am in a certain area, and Ch'ami and Dana have a lot of fun playing with the reflection from my watch. BTW this reflection causes nice surprises, ie; while drinking coffee and the Basenji's jump all over me trying to catch the reflection on the wall behind me. Also very funny when having visitors.
Sorry, have to stick to my story.

Now today the living room needed to be cleaned, yet again. There was no sunshine, and no watch on my wrist. When I worked my way towards the area described above, Ch'ami suddenly danced through the room yodeling towards a reflection ... that wasn't there. Didn't matter, he had lots of fun, all by himself.

Tonight over dinner I told this story to Kees, and made the mistake -yes I'm very sorry- to say, "Ch'ami is a silly Basenji, not so intelligent.”  

OOPS! DON'T ever tell Kees a Basenji is NOT intelligent: they are sooo smart; they only do what they want to do and get you to do the rest for them!! 

He said to me: Ch'ami is very clever, very intelligent. You know why? He is SO intelligent he ASSOCIATES the fact that YOU do what you do in THAT and YOU make that REFLECTION for him, to play with.

So, guess I am the dummy over here!!!