Animal Insting

Trixie was Mom's first basenji. Before she got Trixie, Mom had a Lakeland terrier named Cappy. I guess Mom had kind of a love/hate relationship with Cappy, and she swore that she would never get another dog after Cappy died. Then Cappy did die, and within two weeks, Mom decided she really needed to get another dog. So she did some research about breeds, and she thought it would be great to have a basenji, which just goes to prove that Mom has good taste in dog breeds!

Mom first thought she would adopt a rescued basenji, but it seemed like it would take a long time to get one, so she ended up going to visit a breeder named Linda who lives near us. Mom looked at a bunch of former show dogs that Aunt Linda had, and out of all of them, she chose Trixie. Originally, Trixie was called Skippy because her registered name was Blakemor's Skipper. But Mom changed her name because she thought Skippy sounded like a boy's name. And also like peanut butter.

Trixie was a show dog, and she got 7 points, including 1 major, but that was not enough points to make her a champion. Anyway, she didn't like being a show dog, so Aunt Linda finally stopped making her go to shows. Trixie was 5 when she came to live with Mom.

For a while, Trixie was an only dog, but Mom was worried that Trixie was lonely. So she and Trixie drove down to Oklahoma City, which is where I met them for the first time. But Mom did not adopt me then. Instead, she adopted my younger brother, Marco. Marco was really and truly my brother because we had the same parents. But we weren't littermates because I was born a year earlier than Marco.

Anyway, I'm not going to tell Marco's story because it's even sadder than Trixie's. I'll just tell you that Marco died, and not long after that, Mom found out that Trixie had a disease called Fanconi Syndrome. Fanconi is a kidney disease that any mammal can get -- even humans -- but basenjis seem to get it more often than other animals or other breeds of dogs. The way you mostly get it is you inherit it from your sire and dam. That's how Trixie got it. So far, I have not got it and neither has Piper, but Mom tests us every month just to make sure.

Anyway, I got adopted by Mom and Trixie pretty soon after that. So Trixie was my big sister. We used to play together and she would hump me sometimes to show that she was the boss. Trixie had to take a whole bunch of pills every single day because of her Fanconi Syndrome, but the pills made her feel better and more like playing. Mom took us out walking a lot, and she also made us go camping, which we didn't really like much, but we did it to make Mom happy. Here's a picture of us camping in the cold with our jackets on:

Also Mom took us on trips to some places, like the Basenji National Specialty and to Dallas, where we went to visit Mom's cousin. We did lots of stuff together, including moving to a whole new house, which is the house we live in now. And wherever we went, Trixie and I were together, and lots of times we would both sleep in Mom's bed with her.

After a while, Mom decided it would be fun to have a third dog, so we got Mel. The 3 of us dogs always went walking together, which was fun. And one time we all went to North Carolina together, and another time we all went to Texas.

Finally, we got Barry, so there were 4 of us. Plus Mom, of course. We dogs liked it that Trixie got so many pills because Mom had to stick them down Trixie's throat, and every time she stuck 2 or 3 pills down Trixie's throat, she gave us all a treat. These were really good treats, too, because Trixie had a bad appetite some of the time, so Mom got really yummy treats for her.

There were a lot of times when Trixie didn't feel very good. She told me so herself. And then her knees got really bad and she couldn't hardly walk, so Mom had to carry her around. This was because the Fanconi made her not have much calcium or something like that. Dr. Patricia didn't want to operate to fix Trixie's knees because she didn't think Trixie could heal up after the surgery. So Mom took Trixie to Dr. Patricia's office one day and Trixie never came home again. I wanted her to come home, but she didn't, and I had to get used to not having her around. Then after a while, Piper came to live with us, so I had a new sister. And that's all I can think of right now to tell you about Trixie.