Seventeen years ago, unexpectedly, a friend’s basenji pup captured my heart and moved in with me. As I was meditating on what to call him, the letters D-J-I-K-I mysteriously appeared before me. I raced to my computer to look for any references. The only one I found was a nickname for a Cape Verdean singer. I decided that day to name my new singing African basenji pal Djiki.

Basenjis are native to Africa’s Congo Basin and are still essential to traditional life there. They are natural chasers and hunters—brave, intelligent, athletic, independent creatures who can stand up on their hind legs like meerkats to survey their surroundings. At times they appear to fly airborne across meadows at high speed. 

Some can even climb trees! Uncommonly, they are both sight- and scent-hounds. Like wolves, basenjis cannot bark. However, like the singing dogs of New Guinea, they sing, or “baroo.” They can also cry, howl, and growl. Although basenjis famously never bark, they are not always silent.

“Soon you’ll be his everything,” a dog-savvy friend told me then about little Djiki. I’d set up a dog bed for him next to my mattress on the floor, but the pup wanted the warmth and reassurance of sleeping closer to me. He drifted peacefully off to sleep at my side that first winter night. I could tell we’d entered a new sleeping arrangement for life.

We lived at Mt. Hamilton, near California’s Lick Observatory, and hiked every day on the rugged mountain trails. On our hikes, through ancient blue oaks and manzanitas, we’d often encounter wildlife—coyotes, wild boars, hawks, rattlesnakes, deer, foxes, bobcats, and, once, a mountain lion.

Sometimes at sunset we’d look out at the expansive panorama of valleys, forested coastal mountains, and the sea of city lights to the west. Or, on clear winter mornings at the summit, all the way across the Central Valley to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada to the east. I’d hold him and say with a smile, “One day, Djiki boy, this will all be yours!”

After about five years together, I had the feeling that Djiki might like having a basenji pal at home. He was a “latchkey dingo,” often home alone during the hours I was at work, though I’d always return midday to spend time with him before returning to work in the afternoon. To change that situation, we took in a basenji named Jack. For the first three days, it seemed I’d seriously miscalculated. Djiki expressed his annoyance at the little intruder from the get-go. Jack was a good sport, though. After three days, in a move that delighted me, Djiki allowed Jack to climb up on the bed, forming the Djiki-Jack Pack.

Though it seems like just yesterday, that happened more than a decade ago. We three go everywhere together. Although they look alike, their personalities are different. Djiki usually does not want to interact with any strangers, while Jack seemingly wants to befriend every person and dog he encounters on our walks. A sure sign that Jack likes you is when he quietly sits on your foot and looks up at me with his expressive amber eyes, signaling his acceptance of you—and maybe also wanting to make me a little jealous.

We often encounter people who stop and ask with curiosity, “Are they basenjis?!?” That usually leads to stories about basenjis they’ve known, or questions about the primal breed and what it’s like to live with them.

One day, a little boy playing with his friends in a park came over to ask me about them. I told him they were the world’s oldest kind of dog.

He looked puzzled, thought for a moment, then politely asked, “Why are they still alive?”