E-DOG, on Jun 17 2009, 03:00 PM, said:
When I was growing up my family had a Basenji, a female. Best dog we ever had.
Much like the Australian Dingo, not a barking but a howling doggie...not unlike a coyote or wolf, except more of a yodel if I remember correctly. My great uncle Howard had both on his ranch up in north eastern Washington state. I spent the summer of 1970 on his ranch finding out and respecting how hard/tough farming is and wondering why his dogs did not bark at night, and why the coyotes/wolves were howling so much
After my first week of getting up at 330am each morning, milking the cows, cleaning stalls/cages, feeding every barnyard animal imaginable, cutting, piling up and bailing alfalfa and fixing what seemed like miles of irrigation pipes and huge rain birds, and ending the day at sundown. A weekend BBQ brought forth the answer to my barking questions. They don't bark and those aren't coyotes/wolves howling, he sad, those are my boys, my basenjis and dingos.
Most of the night was spent listening to stories of fishing, hunting and the origins of his boys. It was quite the eye opener and education in the summer of 70. Many fond memories, my first rainbow trout and steel head salmon caught fly fishing, my first dear, my first face to face with a rattle snake and my first ride on the back of a beautiful chestnut mare named April. It was also the summer in which my hunters cap was taken off, my riffle emptied of its lead; by hand, and my killing of animals ended; those few minutes stalking my prey, a beautiful/majestic eight point buck, inspired my poem "Those Eyes".
Oops, a bit off topic, thanks dawg, for bringing back some excellent memories.
Hope I didn't bore you all to much...Jerry