Fox Attack

Driving the kids to school last week, an animal ran out into the middle of our street, and I had to slow down so that I wouldn't plow right into it. At first I thought it was a cat - something that looked almost Siamese. But as I got closer I realized it was huge, more like a dog. Except it wasn't really a dog - the face just didn't look dog-like. "Cat" and "Dog" being the animals I am most familiar with and expect to see on a daily basis, I could almost hear my brain shuffling through the animals I was familiar with, trying to find the right one. Squirrel? too big. Deer? Obviously not. Mountain Lion? no. Fox?

Ha! Had to be the fox. Many moons ago, Steve and I heard a fox out in the back yard, only it sounded like a woman screaming - an old woman who had been screaming for a long time screaming. And it really is a scary sound. We then saw the fox at the end of the yard, far off in the distance as recently as this summer. And even from here we could see that it didn't look healthy.

But that day she was in the street, in a driveway, clumps of fur missing, and her tail bent at a 90 degree angle downward. She looked beat up and sick. If you were a healthy fox, would you go prancing around the more densly populated areas when there were conservation lands and woods available?

Two days later a garbage truck pulled over in front of our house - not OUR trash guys, but another company entirely, to tell Steve there was a fox down the road, and to look out if we had kids. Concerned, we called Animal Control, who told us that, if we saw it again, we could call in and they would send someone over. I guess we're just supposed to invite the fox in and distract it with tea and cookies until the police get here? I mean, I see their point - who wants to go tromping about the woods looking for a fox?

Today I happened to glance out the window from the study and THERE WAS THE FOX, walking right up to our house, right to the deck. I turned and opened the door to the basement, where Steve was working. "Steve! Fox! Fox! Outside!"

Now, Steve later told me he thought I was shouting "Box! Box!" Which makes no sense, but I guess makes just about as much sense as "Fox!" given zero context. He was confused. But then Gunther, who was outside, started barking, and I we rushed outside.

It probably isn't a smart thing to rush out toward a wild animal you think may be infected with rabies. Especially with Andy in your arms. I honestly can't tell you what I was thinking, or if there was any thought process going on at all beyond instinct. Bad instinct.

Naturally, the fox had turned tail and run back where he had come from, or at least that's the direction Gunther was barking in. We got over it pretty quickly, and I started thinking it was probably a different fox altogether, because this one seemed smaller and had no broken tail. But it was enough to get Gunther very upset, and he spent the next twenty minutes peeing on everything visible and invisible in that part of the yard.