Chapter Seventeen – A Fox In The Night – Part Two

I went quietly back into the garage to see the young fox still feeling relieved and delighted that it was alive. It was still sat bolt upright in the middle of the crate and as I neared its head turned slowly so that our eyes were momentarily locked together. The fox’s gaze was only partially focussed and it was evident to me that above all the little creature was confused rather than scared. I guessed that it must have suffered a glancing blow on the road that had rendered it unconscious and most likely it was still quite concussed.

I desperately wanted to talk to it and reassure it with soothing tones but I knew that was the wrong thing to do and above everything I needed to keep an emotional distance from it – in both our interests. So instead and far more importantly I found a couple of bowls from the shelves and filled one with water and another with some dog food then quietly and slowly I opened up the crate door and pushed both in, consciously making no eye contact. Then I left it alone in the hope that solitude and quiet would help his recovery.

Unexpected newcomers like this fox always throw a spanner in the works when it comes to daily plans, all the important things that have been scheduled for the day take a momentary backseat, but the jobs and chores can’t be ignored for long. Fortunately Kelly had got on with and completed the morning feed rounds but I had a long list of maintenance and repair jobs that needed to be addressed. This actually proved to be good for both the fox and myself because it prevented me from poking my head into the garage every five minutes to see how it was getting on and it allowed me time to garner my thoughts and formulate a plan of action.

In the very first instance I was happy with the fox being in the dog crate for the next twenty four hours, then we would have to move it to one of our larger outdoor spaces. Secondly it clearly needed a check over from one of our local vets, I felt relaxed and confident enough about the basic checks for parasites and obvious wounds but we needed a professional to make a thorough investigation. Then of course there was the plan to be made for the next few days or weeks or months that he would be staying with us.

Whilst I worked hammering, drilling, lugging timber around and stapling wire to posts my mind was racing with thoughts concerning the fox and I was oblivious to pretty much anything else that was going on around me.

‘It’s not staying with us you know’. The voice startled me out of my thoughts. It was Kelly who had appeared from the proverbial nowhere.

‘What?’ I replied.

‘I said, it’s not staying.’ Kelly answered.

‘I know it’s not,’ I countered irritably, ‘I have no intention of it staying.’

‘It’ll kill everything.’ She went on.

I felt like she was beginning to nag now. ‘It won’t kill anything as it won’t be let loose here and it’s not staying, but it will be staying until it’s ok to go back into the wild.’

‘I’m just saying that it’s not staying.’

‘I know!’ I was beginning to get annoyed now, then I saw something in Kelly’s eyes. ‘You’ve been in to see it haven’t you.’

‘Yes’ she answered simply and quietly.

‘You have been in to see it and you lurve it.’ I teased.

‘It’s not staying.’ She replied quietly and I could see that she was telling herself more than she was telling me.

‘Come on,’ I said, ‘We need to check it for parasites and then get the vet up here’ and I took her hand and led her to the garage.

It was worryingly easy to carry out our checks. I opened up the crate and with a towel in one hand I stretched my arm in, draped the towel over the fox, then took a grip of the small body. There was little resistance or fight. The fox accepted the towel and made no effort to prevent me from grabbing it. In my arms it was limp and feeble. I peeled back the towel and surveyed the fur and body looking for any obvious injuries or parasites. There were a few, but not many ticks and no signs of open wounds. I dealt with the ticks individually and then squeezed some drops of anti-parasite treatment onto the neck of the unresisting animal before carefully easing it back into the crate.

‘He’s got no will has he’ I said sadly to Kelly, my joy of seeing the fox alive earlier having now been replaced by a deep feeling of despondency.

‘He’s awake, that’s the main thing,’ said Kelly gently, ‘let’s just see what the vet says.’

They were wise and calm words and exactly the ones I needed to hear and cleared my head for the next hour while we waited the arrival of the vet.

‘Hmmm,’ the vet muttered musically as his hands explored the body of the fox. ‘Nothing there. Or there. Hmmmmm. That’s all ok.’ Finally he placed the fox back into the crate and turned to us.

‘Well there’s nothing obviously wrong with this little one. No breakages, no clear wounds. I think the best thing is to keep him under observation and give him time to recuperate. I’ll take some bloods to check there isn’t anything nasty going on inside, but failing that I think he’s going to be fine.’

I looked at Kelly and we couldn’t help but grin ridiculously at each other with perhaps a glistening of relief in our eyes.

‘Thank you so much,’ I said to the vet, ‘we really appreciate you coming out so quickly.’

‘Not at all,’ he replied, ‘I’ll let you know what the bloods tell me.’

Three days later the bloods told the vet that there was nothing insidious lurking in the vulpine’s body. In the meantime the young animal had been telling us that it was on the road to recovery. It was eating and drinking well and when I moved him from the small crate to a small outside run he immediately showed his inquisitive nature by exploring every inch before settling into a corner clearly exhausted by the effort of the exploration. He was however still not showing any fight or aggression to either of us, which is something that I took as a negative. More than anything I wanted this little beast to show some spirit, perhaps a snarl or a snap of its jaws when I pushed food and water into its enclosure. Instead, it was passive, fightless, submissive to any approach I made.

Day by day the fox improved however. After ten days I moved it once again to a larger space in which it could exercise its muscles more and regain some of the youthful strength that had clearly been sapped from its body. And as his rehabilitation continued Kelly and I made a conscious effort to step further into the shadows of its existence. Although our natural instincts are to be involved, assist, comfort and love anything in our care, in the case of this fox we knew that the most loving and responsible thing that we could do for it was to be as deep in the shadows of its awareness as we possibly could.

One notable morning, after about a month of being with us, the young fox gave me the best gift possible when despite all our care and attention to its well-being he met me at the door to his enclosure with an upturned lip and a confident quiet snarl. I could have cried with joy. This is what I had been waiting for. Momentarily I looked it in the eye.

‘Well done boy, well done.’ I whispered passionately and delightedly, then immediately dropped my gaze from his, carefully and slowly opened up the door and pushed in his food.

He hissed at me.

I laughed with joy.

For the next two weeks his improvement was rapid and evident. He would pace confidently around his small enclosure as the ignorant and naïve chickens explored nearby, oblivious to the proximity of their worst nightmare. Everyday he would welcome me with more and more hostility. We knew the time was coming when we would be bidding farewell to our young visitor.

‘I bet you a hundred pounds that after we let him go he’ll be right back and have our chickens.’ Kelly said to me one evening in the middle of watching The Apprentice.

‘Of course he won’t,’ I replied, ‘I’ll take him back to where I found him, that’s almost seven miles away, there’s no way he’ll find his way back here from there. No way.’

‘A hundred quid.’ Kelly said flatly.

‘There is no way.’ I replied.

‘A hundred quid.’

‘You’re on, there is no way he’ll be back.’

‘He will definitely be back,’ Kelly said, ‘you could take him to London and he’ll find his way back to our chicken nuggets.’

‘No way is he returning,’

Liberation day was decided as the end of the following week. Our previously listless, apathetic guest had blossomed into an energetic, spirited and aggressive resident. We knew it was the right time for our paths to take different trajectories.

An hour before dusk I went in to collect the fox from his enclosure. I was wearing the ferret gloves for protection and had a large bath towel to wrap and immobilise the fox. It wasn’t a large enclosure so I didn’t anticipate too much of an issue in catching him. For the umpteenth time in my life I misjudged the dexterity and intelligence of an animal. Now at full health and fuelled with energy the fox deftly avoided my every lunge. He ran between my legs, up the sides of the enclosure and over my head, bounced off my back as I stumbled to grab him in the corner and showered me with water as he leapt through his water bowl to gain height above me. It was a sobering experience being outwitted by the canny and cunning creature. Exhausted, wet, dirty and clueless I literally threw the towel in. The towel flew from my hands in irritated annoyance, hung in the air for a moment as if choosing its mark and then promptly dropped onto the unsuspecting fox whose gaze was firmly clasped on me. For the briefest of moments the animal was frozen in confusion as he lay shrouded under the towel, then he twisted to free himself. For once I reacted quick enough. I dropped onto the small mound and wrapped the towel firmly round the wriggling body.

‘I’ve got him!’ I called to Kelly with joy.

‘About time’ she replied unimpressed.

‘Come on open the door.’ I answered.

She opened the door for me and proffered the small dog crate we had prepared for his short journey back to freedom. I eased the robed figure through the opening, gently squeezed him out of the cloth and shut the door, then lifted the crate into the back of Kelly’s car.

‘Right let’s go, I really want to get him out and on his way while there is still some light.’ I said.

We climbed in, Kelly started the engine and we were off. Just under seven miles. As we turned left out of our drive we were suddenly struck by the most obscene and debilitating stench.

‘Oh my god what is that smell?’ Kelly cried.

‘God that’s dreadful,’ I concurred.

Clearly the fox wanted to convey his annoyance at being put in the back of the car by emptying his bowels. It was the worst smell imaginable. Hurriedly we both wound down the windows and shoved our noses out into the fresh air.

It was a long seven miles and when we eventually arrived in the small lane near to where I had originally picked up the fox we were both still complaining and gagging from the stink. We pretty much fell out of the car in our haste to escape.

‘Oh Jesus, that was bad.’ Kelly complained, though if I am truly honest I think she may have used more colourful language. ‘Right get him out of my car.’

I opened up the boot of her Vauxhall Mokka and took hold of the handle of the crate taking very great care not to inhale.

From within the crate the fox looked out suspiciously from the back corner. I carried the crate a short distance down the lane and placed it easily down. Then with us both at the back of the crate I eased open the front. We both stood back and waited.

A nose appeared and sniffed the air, then two ears, and a front leg. Then the whole body was out. He looked around casually, surveying and assessing. Then in the blink of an eye he had disappeared into the undergrowth. It was the briefest of farewells and very much a bittersweet moment as it had been a real honour and a privilege to have had our little guest.

There aren’t a great many occasions when I have felt real personal pride, but releasing that young fox back into his habitat was one occasion I shall always feel good about, always feel that for him my life had been worthwhile.

We drove back to home with the windows down and breathing as little as we could.

For a few days after releasing the fox, every time I drove down that length of road I would search with fear and trepidation for a small body shattered by a speeding vehicle. Fortunately I never saw one.

About a week after the release I went out one morning to start my rounds. I never have a set routine although Kelly always does, but on this occasion I went to open up the chicken runs so that they could have their usual free run of the sanctuary. Recently to make issues slightly easier I had attached to some of the outside coops automatic doors which operated on a light sensor. I opened the small gate from our private garden to the sanctuary and could see immediately that the large outside coop door was up. I then walked past the greenhouses and stopped dead in my tracks, my stomach lurching. Half a dozen lifeless feathered bodies were strewn across the grass.

We have had chickens killed by dogs invading the sanctuary and we have had some taken by a marauding semi-domesticated black fox in the middle of the day. But to date this was the only time we have had a genuine fox attack.

I was totally gutted and grieved every soul that I collected from the grass.

When I told Kelly the dreadful news her response was simple.

‘I told you so.’

I went and found her hundred quid.