Animal Insting

If you know anything about basenjis, you know that one of our best and cutest features is our curly tails.  Some people call them "cinnamon buns," although they aren't really anything you can eat.  Basenjis in Africa just have kind of loopy tails, but basenjis that are bred to be show dogs usually have tighter curls.  Gabe has a double curl in his tail, but I just have a single curl.  Either of these is okay to have, according to the Official Basenji Show Standards.

Here's a picture of Gabe's curly tail.  Mom sent this picture to a contest that Basenji Companions had, and Gabe won first place for "Curliest Tail."  I was very proud of him for winning this.

Some basenjis wag their tails and some don't.  I never wag my tail because that seems like something that only boring, regular dogs would do.  Gabe doesn't wag his tail either except when he is very, very excited, like if he sees his Mama Erin or his Granny Ruthie.

When we basenjis feel happy, our tails are all curled up over our backs.  But when we are sleeping or when we feel bad, our tails get uncurled.  My tail uncurls more than Gabe's tail because it only has one curl, which makes it easier to uncurl.  When dogs have really tight curls in their tail, it can actually hurt to uncurl them, so you shouldn't make their tails uncurl because it might hurt them and then they might bite you.

Sometimes other kinds of dogs have curly tails, too, but they're usually not as curly as basenji tails.  Barry has a curly tail that makes a big, round circle.  He wags his tail a lot, which Mom thinks is cute, for some reason.  We don't know why Barry has a curly tail.  It's possible that he is part basenji, but Mom can't afford to do one of those fancy, new DNA tests to find out what breeds Barry is made of.

It's not just the tail of a basenji that's cute, though.  I think the entire basenji butt is a thing of beauty.  Here's a picture Mom took recently of my butt while we were just hanging out one day.

And here's a picture of Gabe checking my butt to make sure it was all clean and pretty, even though we were hiking with Mom in the wilderness where nobody much was going to see us.  This is the kind of thing a nice brother will do for his little sister, so I'm always happy when Gabe does it for me.





Sometimes when I'm playing in the bedroom, I like to go under the bed and just leave my butt sticking out.  Mom thinks this is funny, which is why she took a picture of it.











And one way I like to sleep is to crawl under the dog bed instead of sleeping on top of it.  This adds variety to my life and keeps me from getting bored while I sleep.

So anyway, I hope that after reading my blog entry about basenji butts, you will agree that they are totally adorable.  And any time you happen to see a basenji butt, I hope you will take a little time to admire it!