By Craig Hurst
When you reside in the midst of the forests north of North Bay, Ontario, you have different neighbours; mostly of the four legged variety. We’ve had deer browsing through the gardens, moose strolling down the drive and black bears crossing the patio; fortunately not when I was barbecuing or we might have had a different version of the 60’s movie “ Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.”
In addition, groundhogs, snowshoe hares, chipmunks and red squirrels convinced us very early on that vegetable gardening is mainly for their benefit; not ours! Then there are bird feeders, or should I say red squirrel, raccoon and pine marten feeders ! Actually, it really is a wonderful neighbourhood that provides countless moments of joy and gratitude.
Enter “our” red foxes. For the last dozen years, we’ve been witness to families of foxes denning just below our house which overlooks a small gravel pit and field area bordered by forest. It has provided excellent opportunities to observe and photograph families of up to eight kits or pups in their developing months. Normally, the pups are dispersed to fare for themselves in the early fall and mom and dad hang around for the winter. This year, things were different. The five pups split up to the three different dens sites on the property during summer; we occasionally saw mom and then all appeared to be gone in August.
Our 76 acre property has trails over a good portion and myself and our Border Collie, “Blaze” go for one hour “cardio walks” four or five mornings each week. One morning in late August as we came to an intersection of two trails, I was surprised to see a small fox standing and watching us. We all stopped and surveyed the situation. When we continued, the fox actually followed us for a short while. The next morning, he met us in the same area and again followed us to the field area. As we had recently seen bear sign around, I had been carrying a small bear bell both days. On the third day, he showed up again and I thought of Pavlov’s dogs being conditioned and responding to a food bell. This was crazy! We were in the habit of occasionally dropping some wiener pieces at the bottom of our field to help mom through the pup feeding stage and winters and when we met him on day 3, he followed us to the drop area where I left some wiener pieces. Now he really was responding to the “dinner bell.” What had I started?
Then we had a surprising event. As I was about to walk out of the garage one afternoon, I noticed the fox and Blaze standing about 10 feet from each other in the drive. Unfortunately, Blaze was in the habit of chasing our red squirrels whenever he saw me walk toward him. When he became aware of my presence, he began a chase but returned when called. The fox also returned and off we all went to the field and the feeding spot.
We soon progressed to another stage when he met us over by one of the dens located in an area of sand hills. He began to follow us on the trail and after a while travelled beside us in the woods a short distance away, only to go ahead of us and when we got to the feeding area, guess who was waiting for us. The area where we drop the food pieces is on a trail in the woods at the end of the field. He waited about 10 feet away for his wiener pieces to be placed on the ground and then fed as I moved away.
Up until this point, he and Blaze had kept an eye on each other but always maintained their distance. Blaze would likely have chased him, but held back as instructed. The next day, the fox actually came trotting across the sand to meet us. As we remained stationery and Blaze lay down, the fox spent some time just walking about while getting closer and closer. Surprisingly, Blaze actually let him approach to within 3 feet of his tail!
In the days ahead, he would occasionally come bounding in to meet us appearing to be happy to find us. We know he saw us as a food source, but we also believed he actually enjoyed our presence. We’ll never really know the circumstances that brought us together
but for some reason, he had been left on his own prematurely and maybe now he just enjoyed some companionship. This was reinforced as he would regularly come back to the house area after having eaten and just hang around. As is typical with humans, we thought that we should give him a name. Elaine suggested that as I kept referring to him as the little one of the litter, why not call him “ Little One”? Little One now had a name.
The situation as developing, did present us with some conflicting thoughts and feelings. While we enjoyed the relationship that was developing, we also believed it would be in his best interest to retain his natural instincts in regard to people. A wild animal should remain a wild animal. He did remain cautious at all times and would start and move back at any sudden movement. While we enjoyed the closeness of our interactions, we wanted his wariness to continue.
He and Blaze were developing their own pattern of behaviour. While at times seeming to want a relationship with Blaze, Little One always kept an eye on this black and white thing. Blaze would always go into his typical Border Collie head down crouch position whenever Little One appeared and they would usually stay about 10 – 15 feet apart. What was fascinating was that they would frequently exhibit the same pattern of behaviour. The fox would regularly exhibit yawning behaviour during the first moments of our interactions. He would also lie down while doing this. He seemed to be trying to show everyone that “Everything is cool” and we’re going to be OK together today. Blaze will frequently exhibit the same behaviour with us. Whenever Blaze would feign a little chase, Little One would bound away briefly and return. Occasionally he would cross in front of Blaze as if to say, “ Catch me if you can!” I don’t think Blaze ever considered Little One as his buddy. After all, this new found thing would eat “his” wieners ! However, everyone was settling into our way of relating. Little One continued to approach Blaze occasionally when allowed and Blaze refrained from doing what he really wanted to do which was chase this new member of our group. Surprisingly, Little One also began to respond to his name being called which I’m sure was just another form of
“dinner bell.” There must be a certain level of acceptance on his part, as he would frequently go about his business of exploring and hunting for rodents and insects in our presence. He tried some high bush cranberries one day only to shake his head in distaste.
We enjoyed some special moments. It was a beautiful moment watching him and Elaine sitting together in the field one afternoon, six feet apart. He lay down, stretched, yawned and closed his eyes occasionally as she got some lovely photographs. It was treasured moments between human and fox. We could not help but feel that perhaps we were his surrogate family group. When cutting brush one day down by the barn, our friendly fox came and sat eight feet away in the middle of everything and continued to sniff all the brush as it was cut; at least until our possessive Blaze arrived on the scene. But even then, he just moved a little further away and stayed until I finished.
We also had two cute “driveway incidents.” Each Tuesday, I walk the garbage down our 300 foot drive to the highway. Blaze has been trained to not come closer than 100 feet to the highway, so he sits and waits as I place the garbage at the highway. One day , as I turned to head back up the drive, there was Little One sitting and waiting 50 feet away and Blaze another 50 feet beyond him! What a well trained duo! Later that month, as we started to leave, we noticed Little One approaching the driveway. We continued to drive down to the highway, only to notice him sitting in the middle of the drive watching us leave, as if to say, “Where are you going?” It did tug at our hearts a little. Then we had our “territorial incident.” Little one and Blaze continually did their own territorial piddle routines. However, one day I could not make it back to the house in time so I used the outdoors, with our friendly fox watching from close by. Be darned, as soon as I finished, didn’t Little One walk immediately over as I left and piddle on my wet spot! I said “Hold it! This is my property!” As I laughed, I also thought that actually, this is as much his place as it is mine. The truth is, we’re all just caretakers for a time.
During October, Little One began to cache food, as is normal fox behaviour. He would gently scrape away about 3 to 4 inches of soil and place one or two wiener pieces in the hole, covering it with soil, grass and leaves and pack it down gently with his nose, hoping to find it again when needed. He was very skilled, as we would have difficulty finding the cache site afterwards. What was surprising, but I guess a demonstration of his trust, is that he would perform this activity in our presence.
As winter approached, our little friend had his first snow experience. With our first light snow, we watched him gingerly walk about, seeming reluctant to put each paw down on the snow. Of course, in North Bay, he would quickly get accustomed to the white stuff. Moving into the winter months, we began to see Little One only two or three times a week. This was quite a change from two times a day that we had become accustomed to in the previous months. Being nocturnal hunters, when we also used to see him during morning, afternoon and evening, we often wondered when he would get his required sleep. By the time Christmas arrived, things continued to change. We were not seeing Little One at all now. We worried about the hazards of the highway but from his tracks and the disappearance of food from the feeding area, we knew he was still around. We would regularly find fresh tracks and signs of recent digging close to the house. Perhaps now he was just becoming much more nocturnal and travelling further a field.
The truth is; we were now missing “our” Little One. Even Blaze continued to be on alert for him whenever outside. We comforted ourselves with the belief that even though we were not interacting together as before, he was still safe and around the property.
Then one night in January, Elaine heard some yelping close by and she thought it might have been two foxes, not one. Next morning, we checked and sure enough, we did see two sets of tracks down by the feeding area. This was an encouraging new development. In the past, when we heard yelping during the January/February mating period, we would often be witness to pups in the spring. Could this mean Little One has found a friend? If so, would they choose a den sight close to us? If he were to father a litter close by, we can only wonder what the relationship with his previous surrogate family of Border Collie and humans might be. Will he ever walk back into our lives? Might there be another chapter? We can only hope.
