Dreams and Wild Things

There is a fox in my kitchen.  Wild, inquisitive eyes are looking at me.
A slender sensitive nose is sniffing unseen trails across the floor.  A long limbed, sharp clawed, streak of lightening is racing across the room, scrambling up hampers of dirty clothes in the laundry room.  He is Tamaki, the fulfillment of a dream my daughter has had for many years.

My oldest daughter Kay has loved foxes since she was a little girl.  She did a report on the gray fox in second grade.  She saved her birthday gifts and lawn mowing money.  She found a breeder a few hours away.  She figured out how to apply for a license from the state.  And finally in June she went to pick up her new little rascal!  For the first week she had to feed him formula from a bottle every eight hours.  That wasn’t easy since he was much more interested in running around than eating most of the time!  He made the transition to solid food easily though, much to Kay’s relief.  He also learned to use the cat’s litter box, with only a few accidents.  I’m not sure what Sabre thinks about a fox sharing his litter box, but he doesn't seem to object.  

Gray foxes are a different genus than other foxes, with only a few close relatives.  They are unique among foxes for their tree climbing ability, with sharp curves claws that allow them to grip tree bark, or in Tomaki’s case, blue jeans.  I have seen him climb my daughter’s legs and all the way up to her shoulders!  Gray foxes don’t adapt as easily to human presence as red foxes do, and so red foxes have become the dominant fox species in much of the gray foxes’ range.  Tomaki will be around 3 feet long when he is full grown, with his tail making up at least a foot of that length.  In the wild he would sleep in a hollow tree or borrowed den during the day, but in our house he has a kennel in the laundry room.  He would hunt mostly rabbits or voles and shrews.  We feed him a special fox food we get from the breeder, but he is always on the lookout for any people food he can snatch or dig out of the trash.  We have to put him in his kennel when we eat or he will just jump on the table and try to steal our food.  He growls and snaps when we try to take it away from him.  It is a reminder that he really is not a domesticated animal, and we must always be more careful with him.  However, when guests come, he greets them like a puppy, wagging his tail, whining and trying desperately to lick their faces!  



A few people have said that I was a brave mom to let my daughter get a fox.  It would be a lot easier not to have a fox, or a cat or a snake or rats or any of the other pets that have shared our home over the years.  There would be a lot less messes to clean, a lot less shoes chewed, plants dug up, hair or scattered bird seed to sweep.  But my children know things now that they would otherwise just have known about.  It may not seem like much that they know how not to startle a bird, or how to handle a rat or a snake, but in learning that, they are also learning that each creature has its own nature, its own needs.  And that we can’t expect a fox to act like a dog, but we value each individual for its own uniqueness.  That is worth cleaning up a few messes for me.  But what matters even more to me is that my children know that their dreams are worth chasing.  Even if they are a little on the wild side!