This last winter was pretty harsh and cold. There were many days when I preferred to stay inside rather than take the bucket of kitchen scraps down to the compost pile, so a few were left on the deck to freeze. Late in the winter, the kitchen scraps started to get strewn around. Dainty footprints spotted the deck and we knew a fox was visiting and stealing our left-overs.
One evening, as we sat down for supper in still freezing April, the pointed and delicate face of a fox appeared at the sliding glass door. She was skinny and ragged, half of her fur coat missing. Her tail, rather than being a grand russet broom, looked wasted and gray. Worst of all, she was limping badly on her left front leg; it had a swelling high on the thigh - probably broken or badly damaged. There we were in the warmth, tucking into a feast. There she was, a pane of glass away, slowly dying of cold and malnutrition.
With a 12 year old, soft-hearted daughter and a wife who loves to take care of people, I had no chance of upholding the wisdom of letting her starve. While not quite begging like a dog, her eyes and stance made it quite clear she was expecting some genuine response from us. We fed her.
Now it is June and we have a pet fox. Her name is Lucy Fox; she visits most evenings at around 6.00. Her left leg is still swollen and obviously painful, worse some days than others. She runs, or rather hobbles gracefully on three legs.
I am startled by her quiet presence, a few feet behind me as I walk up from the greenhouse with vegetable for supper. She is there when we unload groceries from the car. At dusk, she sits patiently, alert and focused, waiting for her daily dues. If you have food and stay still, she will fearlessly come within a couple of feet. She is the perfect pet - quiet, undemanding, beautiful and intelligent.
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