Awww …… little cuties !
A couple of years back I befriended a male fox. Me and him became really good mates, he would wait every evening in my porch for his dinner, which he would eat whilst I sat next to him. If I saw him up the road I only needed to whistle and he would come running. Come the spring he had a litter of cubs hidden away somewhere, so I had to give extra food for him to take back to them.
One day when they were old enough, he brought all to meet me (and presumably to show them where to get food!) it was a really moving moment as I realised just how much he trusted me, although his cubs were pretty nervous of me.
He carried on bringing them at dinner time everyday after that, although in the end I had to let come into the house on his own because his cubs were taking all the food and he wasn’t getting a look in.
Then the following winter during the mating season, the day which I had always dreaded eventually came, he was knocked down and killed whilst crossing the road – the bugger never had a road sense.
Needless to I was pretty devastated, I guess it was a bit like losing your pet dog. I had his body cremated. His name unsurprisingly, was Basil. His cubs (at least some of them) I think are still around. I put food out still, but not as much and not everyday, and I make a point of not making contact with which ever one is taking it. I don’t really want to go through that again, specially knowing that the average lifespan of an urban fox is not much more than 1 year.
I still miss Basil and sometimes wish that I had never known him, but he did teach just how much a ‘wild’ animal can come to trust someone who is patient and gives them time. And the feeling of being that ‘privileged’ is really rather special.