Page 98 - ShowSight - October 2020

SUSAN KAMEN MARSICANO, APU BASENJIS
Top left: Fern racing—CH MACH Apu Painted Sand RA MXG2 MJC MXF T2B2 THD TKA CL3 RS-N JS-O GV-N SC FCh SGRC ORC SOR CGC TDIA VBE. Photo by Natalie Culver. Bottom left: CH MACH Fern—CH MACH Apu Painted Sand RA MXG2 MJC MXF T2B2 THD TKA CL3 RS-N JS-O GV-N SC FCh SGRC ORC SOR CGC TDIA VBE. Fern’s MACH photo. She has been invited to the AKC Agility Invitational every year since 2013. Photo by David Cerilli. Right: “Sophie’s Painting” - see Gayle Bontecou and Evelyn Symanski in the photo frieze.
In the spring of 1973, I took the subway to the Long Island Railroad, got off in Huntington, and hitched to my first match show. Blush rode in a brown cardboard cat carrier. I was wearing a long skirt and not very appropriate shoes. Right away, a woman yelled at me, “Who’s she out of?” I thought, “out of?” The woman continued, “She’s a typey bitch.” I thought, “typey?” This lady turned out to be the inimitable Sunny Shay, breeder of the famous Grandeur Afghan Hounds. She was a fan of ours from that day forward. Seems we also lived on the same block in NYC. She told me about Juliette De Baïracli Levy, too, the “mother of natural rearing” as well as the breeder of the Turkuman Afghan Hounds.
Veronica Tudor Williams awarded my Poet dog “Best Basenji of the Year” in 1976 or thereabouts. She understood breed type. She also used one of my Basenji drawings for her notepaper. Veronica was foundational in our breed, in the UK, importing dogs from the Congo. She imported the great Fula OTC (of the Congo) in 1956.
The Apu Basenjis are widely known, highly successful in various disciplines, and well respected. What breeding philosophies do you adhere to?
That’s simple: Good health, good temperament, good looks. Do those things and be careful in placing your puppies, and their lifespan should be 15-plus years.
None of these three things can be without the other. I don’t believe there is any excuse for breeding a nasty dog. I don’t believe there is any excuse for not doing all the health testing required by CHIC.
In Basenjis, every dog, before breeding, should have had a DNA test for Fan- coni Syndrome and for Progressive Retinal Atrophy. No one should breed a dog that doesn’t have an OFA number for his/her hips. It’d do our breed well if people would also get patellas certified. No dog should be bred from if it has Autoimmune Thyroid disease. All Basenjis should be thyroid tested in anestrus before breeding.
I am certain that Basenjis can be trained and do well in many dog sports. I think they should be exposed to the field/Performance events (lure coursing and racing) when they are young. I know they can learn just about anything as baby puppies.
They can learn Companion sports, such as Obe- dience and Rally, very young. People just need to give them the opportunity to excel. No dog should be kept just to feed egos at dog shows, and then rehomed when no longer needed.
The Basenji is an elegant sighthound. It needs to have far-seeing, obliquely set, almond-shaped dark eyes, a wrinkled forehead, and a free-moving gait that converges to the center of gravity. A Basenji that possesses a fancy side gait, but isn’t clean com- ing and going, is not typical to our breed.
How many dogs do you currently house? Tell us about your facilities and how the dogs are maintained. I have just had the passing of my darling, famous, terrifically accomplished two 15-year-old dogs. They left within two weeks of one another. That leaves my pack at seven Basenjis, plus two parakeets (don’t forget Heloise and Abelard). These dogs live in my house as my family. They are not crated. They have full run of the house. Five sleep under the covers in my bed, and two sleep in the living room. I do have a crate in the library, if I need it, and my office upstairs is also a place I use when I need to separate dogs during heat cycles. They do have their crates in my van, as no dog rides loose, and I prefer to ride them two in a crate. I train my dogs, and breed for biddability and good
health, which helps them to be a happy pack.
96 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 2020