Essays Contents
The Grey Fox
January 16, 2023
It was dark when I stepped outside to the back yard...
can't remember what I was doing...
when a pair of shining eyes... caught my attention.
I'm often seeing possums sliddering along the fence...
and so... my first guess was... it was a possum.
Well, I'm not friendly to those possums.
Occasionally I'll say something to it...
speaking just loudly enough for it to hear me...
"There he is... there's that possum...
there's that possum with the big teeth.
I don't like that possum with the big teeth.
Yep, there he goes... there he goes."
I have to rely on tone of voice for such communications.
But... possum now knows what he is... a possum...
and possum knows that I want him to stay away from me.
But... possums will always slidder away...
like a shy... but a sly... little rat with a hairless tail...
but... this critter... didn't...
and I had stopped to take a better look at these eyes...
and it wasn't moving... it wasn't going... anywhere.
The eyes moved...
carefully the animal turned sideways to my view...
and... it could have been a cat...
except the ears... were triangles...
and stuck firmly up in the air.
Well... was it a dog...?
with longer, leaner legs than a cat would have?
and with a long furry tail?
No... it wasn't a dog...
unless it was a very strange breed of dog.
I caught a memory of another encounter I had had...
an occasion when I had opened a warehouse garage door...
and was going about some task at hand...
with no noise occurring inside or outside...
but... with a sudden noisy rustling...
from some critter on some higher shelf...
against a far wall.
The rustling... sounded... deliberate.
The rustling... was a trapped animal...
that had snuck into the warehouse...
and was holed up among the boxes of merchandise...
or... needed very much to leave the warehouse.
At the time... I just thought the animal...
wanted me... the intruder... to know I was not alone.
And so... I now wonder about wild animals.
Is it part of the "code" of the wild...
that... you inform another animal...
that... they aren't... alone?
Is this... common courtesy?
And now here... this... strange animal in my yard...
was it... letting me know that it was around...?
but... why would this animal do such a thing?
And... as I had stood there... for several minutes...
very obviously looking right at this animal...
what did I see now...
but... a litter of puppies...
emerging from under the shed.
And now I could see... it was a nursing mother.
I caught another memory.
I was visiting a small farm with a few other people
and we were all outside, sitting, preparing a meal...
gathering sitting pieces to sit on... whatever...
and just doing various things...
when... through the wire fence...
from the field of tall grass on the far side...
emerged... a dog.
It slowly walked into our yard...
and sat itself down... so properly... so nicely...
you could see that this dog was... well-behaved.
The guy who lived there saw the animal
and told us that he sees these dogs all the time.
People drive out from the city
and just drop their dogs off out in the country...
for one reason or another...
dog got pregnant... they can't handle a litter...
the family is moving... and can't bear to have it killed.
The guy went for a bowl to fill with water
and made a pile of some food scraps he had...
but... this dog didn't move to eat... or drink.
This was strange... surely the animal is thirsty...
and I wondered... if there was something bad about the water.
And then the dog just stood up...
and turned and went back through the wire fence.
It wasn't but a minute later... that we saw...
that there were six puppies...
all coming very shyly through the wire fence...
and towards the food and water.
The mother dog... took neither food nor water...
but only nudged her pups towards them...
and we all witnessed... what it was...
to survive in the wilds of the human world.
We ended up putting them in a box with the mama
and taking them to a recreational park near a lake
and asking all passers-by... to adopt a puppy.
I wept all the way there...
and couldn't stop crying like a fool at the lake.
It struck me so sadly... so sadly... for these animals.
And now... the animal in our yard...
gathered her young around her...
and did not shy from me.
It was late... and I hesitated doing anything in the darkness.
But the next day... I found a shallow bowl...
and placed it under a faucet near the back of the yard...
and turned the faucet on... just a drizzle...
to keep the bowl filled up.
And I found a piece of raw steak in the freezer
put it on an aluminum pie pan...
and went to the shed where I knew they were holed up...
and carefully slid the pan... under the shed.
I resolved that... I would only do this... one time.
These animals needed to keep moving on...
and find a better place to make their home.
I talked to some "official" about this stranger in our yard...
which I had figured out from photographs... was a grey fox.
I was told that... wild animals can go anywhere...
and that "animal control services"
will not come out for a wild fox...
but there are people who do care for these wilds...
and you can find them with a search engine.
When I did that... I was told... they are overwhelmed.
They concentrate on helping injured wild animals...
and sometimes deliver animals to other states.
I realized that I could do nothing for these foxes...
and should just discourage them from staying.
That night... I came outside...
and stood for a few minutes looking out across the yard.
Was the family of foxes... still there?
Did they even find the meat I gave for them?
And... what a sight it was to see...
the mama fox appeared...
and right behind her...
six little pups... walking in single file...
towards the water bowl I had set out for them...
and each pup held its tail straight up in the air...
just as proper and as respectful as any pup could ever be.
I never saw them again.
The pan of meat... had been eaten.
I left the water on... a few more days.
