The little cutie is coming along nicely and now that she's over the shock of a new house and a new dad, she's really become a pistol. She scurries all over the place running from one toy to another (oh yeah she's received about 5 new furry toys as gifts from all her admirers). "Let me play with this one....no let me play with this one...hey I forgot about you...let me play with you for 15 seconds now...on and on and on." What's a beach princess to do with all these toys. Its a riot to watch her. The good thing is that she eventually wears out and falls asleep.

Crate training is still ongoing with her still screaming her dislike of being inside the crate. I went out for about a half hour yesterday and left her in the cage. Although she stopped screaming while I was gone, the crate was a mesh when I returned. Poor thing, she peed and pooped in the cage from all the stress but now its clean again and we'll restart the training again today. Any suggestions on making this easier on her and I ? My vet said just buy a good set of headphones , go into another room and ignore her. I may try that. Last night I was definitely buzzed. She wanted to chew on the end of the dinning room rug and I kept telling her no. Finally she buzzed me and we had a firm chat and staring contest with me winning of course. It was so funny to see her so determined to get at that rug no matter what but she finally let me win (this round of course).

Keep in touch and hope all your other deliveries go well
- Dennis

We're all beginning to use the word NO more often now and Pia is coming along nicely. She's learning how to walk on the lease (inside the condo) even though she still hasn't figured out that she is supposed to be walking in front of me and not behind. She's still fighting me tooth and nail about being inside her crate but I got a few good suggestions from Susan (her breeder) which I pl an to try. Tomorrow is her first vet visit with Dr Cox at Gentlecare Animal Hospital so that should be fun for everyone involved. I'm glad that I was able to get her during my week off from school so that we had some stress-free adjustment time.

Will send some new pics and updates in the near future.
- Dennis

Hi Susan:
Just a quick note to let you know that Pia and I are surviving each other quite nicely. I truly forgot what it's like to have a Basenji puppy in the house. Dear God, was Becky ever this energetic and mischievious? I guess so, it's just that I forgot because she was a grownup for the last few years. It's funny to note that a few of my wonderful neighbor babysitters have slowly stopped offering to watch her when I run out for quick errands and it just goes to show you that not EVERYONE can be a Basenji person. (Smile). One of them told me she actually needed a vacation after just 3 hours of babysitting. When I came back from the store, there was my neighbor completely passed out of the couch with Pia passed out on top of her chest. I cracked up. It's funny but light weights shouldn't think they can handle Basenji's.

Pia's crate training is still coming along slowly and she is definitely a SCREAMER. Hates the cage, hates being penned into a small room equally as much. I'm determined to crate train her because reality is that she is quite mischievious and cannot be left out alone for safety reasons and because she will chew everything in site. Hopefully as she gets older the crate wont be necessary but for now, it's essential. The biting stage has calmed down quite a bit, but it's been replaced by the "hey let's unravel the entire roll of toilet paper" stage, AND the every popular "let's shred all the toilet paper I just unraveled stage'. She seems to be tolerating the trips in the car much better with just a little bit of moaning instead of the OH MY GOD SCREAMS that took place the first few times she was in the car. Today we learned a new stage..... if I run from the bedroom at breakneck speed and jump into my new puppy bed, I can actually make the puppy bed slide about 3 feet across the tile floor.

AND if I do it over and over and over again, I can actually move the puppy bed across the entire room. She is so funny, so stubborn and so damn proud of her little accomplishments. Litter box is working well with about an 80% success rate with me directing her to the box alot of the time. She hasn't really been outside except when I take her to the store or to the neighbors and I'll start walking her after her next series of shots. I've been exposing her to lots of people socialization but the animal exposure won't be until a few more weeks.

I'll send some more pictures soon as I plan to do more shots this weekend. Pia sends her love to grandma Susan.

Keep in touch.
- Dennis