Pet Fox Stories: Pancake Goblins

This morning, in addition to his regular food, I gave Gizmo two small pancakes. Pancakes are by FAR his favorite food; he's the only canine I've ever met who will ignore bacon to eat pancakes. Well, he scooped up the pancakes out of the bowl, squealed in excitement, then ran and stashed them inside his play tunnel. He also put a tennis ball on top of them to "bury" them so I wouldn't see them.

He then wolfed down his breakfast burger, picked up the empty dish, and carried it to me, making his best little sobbing noises. Pancake Goblins had stolen his pancakes out of the dish, so I should totally give him two MORE pancakes to make up for it.

I entered the pen, and pointed out his "hidden" pancakes. He responded by gekkering at me, scooped up the pancakes, "hid" them again (in the corner behind his litterbox this time), and then once again brought me the empty bowl and looked his most pathetic.

Pet Fox Stories: Go To Bed

Gizmo sleeps in a very large dog crate at night. Otherwise, he will typically make a destructive little nuisance of himself. He's like a toddler--constant supervision is required when he is out in the house, otherwise he gets himself into all sorts of trouble.

Well, the other night I went downstairs around 1 in the morning, only to see that Gizmo's night crate was standing wide open, it's occupant gone. I couldn't help but groan internally, as few things are as hard to catch as a Gizmo who doesn't want to go to bed for the night. Plus who knows what he might have destroyed in the few hours he had been out without supervision.

A quick search of the house found him playing by his toy-bucket, flipping one of his stuffed animals into the air and then practicing pouncing on it. I watched him play for a little bit before clearing my throat. Gizmo startled, then looked at me, gave his best doggy smile, and windmilled his tail wildly. In other words, he was doing his best "Aren't I just so cute?" look.

"Go to bed," I said, pointing at the door.

Gizmo looked at me like I was making up words.

"Bed." I repeated in a stronger tone, again pointing at the door. This time Gizmo came creeping towards me, stuffed toy in mouth, ears and tail low. He skulked along with me over to his night crate, and went right in when I opened the door. Of course, he was making little grumbling complaining noises the whole way.

A quick search of the house revealed that nothing had been destroyed; he apparently had spent the whole time he was out over playing with his toys. He's starting to mature into a very nice animal. Who knows, maybe some day I'll be able to trust him out of his crate alone, and he can play all night!

Stay tuned; tomorrow is this week's Photo Of The Week, and Monday I'm going to be discussing what foods are harmful to pet foxes!

Pet Fox Stories: Attack Of The Grocery Bag!

Sionnach the Fox

This is a story from the Sybil's Den Message Boards. Sionnach is another red fox, about Gizmo's age.

I'm not the one who wrote this, and I used it without permission; I will take it down if Stacey asks me to, but I thought it was too funny not to share.

"Picture if you will... a mild mannered fox living in a cabin in the woods of Wyoming (with his 2 people, 2 dogs and mean, mean cat). This fox finds it FASCINATING when his mom comes home from work because she works at a "whole foods" type store and almost every day brings food & other exciting items home in these cloth bags of various sizes. Invariably, even though she KNOWS the fox will immediately jump on the kitchen table to investigate, she places these bags on the table nonetheless. The following ensues... as she takes off her coat she says, "Sion, leave it those aren't for you". Sion takes three steps back, looks at this woman and then proceeds to go right back to poking his needle nose into the bags. This back and forth continues until all groceries, etc are put away and the cloth bags are hung back out in the mud room away from fox teeth, pee, etc.

EXCEPT - one day last week, one of those reusable bags you can buy at the grocery store was left on the kitchen table (you know the ones - usually green or black and you can buy them for like a dollar at the store). While the woman was still in the kitchen/ living room and the man was in the bedroom, the bag attacked!!!! The following events occured... Sion jumped off the table and the bag followed! Then he ran to the "baby gate" (which is up at times to keep the dogs from eating his food) and paused - thinking he'd lost the bag. The bag was still there! He then jumped over the gate, jumped up on the bed, jumped off the bed back over the baby gate into the kitchen - doubled back - jumped back over the baby gate - the bag still attached - then dove under the bed. Under the bed he successfully "lost" the bag. At this point his 2 people were laughing so hard tears were streaming down their faces. The fox was not amused and when I said, "Can you get the bag out from under the bed?". The reply from the "man" was (through laughter), "Are you nuts? I'm not sticking my hand under the bed 'til he comes out!!"

The moral of the story is... foxes should not stick their noses in things that don't belong to them - they might attack back!

PS - Sion still jumps up on the table to examine the bags EVERY time I come home!

PPS - No foxes were harmed in this story and Sion only had it stuck around one back leg."

Pet Fox Stories: Hanging By His Toes

A lot of people question the need to have a complete roof on their fox enclosures, doubting the fox's ability to climb upside down. Well, I recently had an experience with Gizmo the other day that made the need for a full ceiling very clear.

The other day while I was making lunch, I had Gizmo shut in his indoor playpen so he wouldn't be "helping" me to make and/or eat it. The play pen is about 50 square feet, with a fenced in top. Usually he can be left in there to entertain himself without worry that he'll get himself into too much trouble.

After realizing that I was not currently in the room giving him attention, Gizmo did his typical "mommy come here" warble. My hands were a bit full at the moment, so I just called back to him to let him know that I had heard him.

He continued to call, getting louder and more upset sounding, until he finally gave up on the warbling and just started out right shrieking. At this point, I was getting a bit concerned, so I walked in to see what all the fuss was about.

Gizmo was hanging upside down by his toes, desperately clinging to the top of his play pen, and wailing his little heart out. He wasn't caught on the bars or anything, and no toes were trapped. He had just managed to climb onto his ceiling, and now was afraid to jump down. I entered the play yard, got a good hold of him, and got him to let go of the ceiling and drop down into my arms. Nobody was hurt, and Gizmo was thrilled to have been rescued.

Do you have any interesting stories about what your pets have done when you're out of the room? What interesting predicaments have your critters managed to get themselves into while you weren't looking? (Or for particularly talented pets, while you were looking.)

And stay tuned! Tomorrow is going to be the first "Featured Photo of the Week", then Monday I'm going to be discussing trimming a fox's toenails.

Pet Fox Stories: Sibling Rivalry

People are often quite worried when they find out that I have a fox and cats, under the theory that one will surely devour the other. However, contrary to popular belief, foxes and cats are not hardwired to kill each other. However, it wouldn't be quite accurate to say they "get along well", either. Although there is no overt aggression, there is a very intense rivalry between the fox and the cats.

The picture you see is of Gizmo the fox, Mischief the cat, and what has come to be known as the "Drama Chair". For reasons that I don't understand and probably never will, this ratty old chair has become the most hotly contested piece of property in the entire house.

Gizmo loves the chair dearly; it's quite possibly his favorite thing in the entire house. Unfortunately, this has not escaped the cat's notice. Whenever Mischief happens to notice him relaxing on it, her typical response is to come and hop on to the back of the chair, giving him a hiss and a dirty look.

Gizmo's response to an animal half his size telling him to get off the chair is usually to hop to the floor and start screeching and wailing at the top of his lungs, letting the whole neighborhood know that a gigantic panther has come and stolen his chair from him. If nobody removes the cat from her perch, he will start to dart back and forth between the nearest human and the chair, just wailing.

The cat tends to ignore this whole display; foxes, if such creatures exist, are far beneath her notice. However, the only time she ever sits on the chair is when she's kicked Gizmo off it. If he's not there to freak out, she sees no appeal in "having" the chair.

What about you guys? Do you have any interesting stories of "sibling rivalry" between your animals? What do you do to resolve them? Tell me about it in the comments!

And stay tuned: Wednesday I'm going to discuss methods of introducing a new pet to established ones.

Animals and Children.

Recently on one of the exotic pet forums, there was a discussion about how to teach foxes to tolerate children, and Gizmo and I were mentioned in it a few times. One of the members on the forum, who shall remain nameless in this post, said that he lets his niece carry his baby fennec around like a doll and dress it up, on the theory that if she's subjected to it as a pup, she will put up with it as an adult. I just want to go on the record as saying I don't approve of that method of teaching any exotic pet tolerance of children; it's too easy for things to go wrong, and a bite won't end well for anyone involved.

I figured that it'd be best to make it clear what I did to make Gizmo like kids, and what my thoughts are on the matter.

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I have rules for Gizmo around people (one of these rules is he is ONLY allowed to roughhouse with me and my mom), and yes, Gizmo has been socialized to children and is good with them. However, Gizmo is never pinched, pulled on, dragged around, or otherwise manhandled by children. I simply won't allow such treatment. Gizmo is also never left unsupervised around children for both his sake and theirs.

After teaching Gizmo how to take treats nicely, and he was doing it reliably, I had children who I could trust to behave and knew VERY well (my little cousins) feed him treats, talk to him softly, pet him, etc. He was exposed to kind, quiet, gentle children at a young age, and learned to associate kids with affection and good things.

Gizmo has never had a negative experience with any child.

Back before the whole mess with the county, children in the neighborhood were allowed to pet him and rub his belly, but only after I made it very clear to them what is acceptable behavior on their part and what is not. And the contact was entirely on Gizmo's terms. I've never seen him not eager to greet a child (as all of his experiences with them have been positive), but if Gizmo ever seemed wary or unsure of ANYONE, the contact ended there, and he was never made to endure being touched by someone he didn't want touching him.

Now, at home when I'm playing with him, sometimes I do stuff that annoys him. I tug on his ears, roll him off his feet, hold him down, and am irritating in general. I don't do this every play session, but I make sure to really annoy him during play at least once a week. This is to see how he handles someone being "unfair", and to offer a quick correction if he reacts badly.

Overall, he's very tolerant of me being "bad"; his first response is to get whiny, his next response is generally to go under his play cube and refuse to come out. I reward these behaviors, as I think that avoidance is the best response he could possibly have towards rough treatment. However, under no circumstances would I allow anyone to treat him roughly.

When it comes to animals and children, it's far more important to teach a kid how to treat animals properly, not to teach an animal to put up with harassment and abuse. Animals don't think "human", so you have to teach a child to understand how the animal thinks.

Pet fox Stories: You Dance Like I Smell

Gizmo won't bark at me. He just won't. He seems to think it's, I dunno, rude or something. However, we have discovered that when my brother woofs at him, Gizmo would woof right back.

Well, tonight we were working more on training him to bark on command. However, when my brother barked at him, Gizmo just.. stared blankly at him. So then he stood right outside the cage, and started to do this little shimmy-in-place dance step.

Gizmo watched him dance for a little bit, then made a grumbling noise, ran over to stand right across the bars from him, looked him right in the eye, then squatted and peed right there in front of him. Really, really musky smelling pee too, not just his normal stuff. It made my eyes water.

That "said", he turned and walked back into his play cube to sulk.

My little brother laughed, and said that "I think Gizmo just said 'you dance like I smell'."

We didn't make any progress with bark-on-command, but at least we both got a laugh out of it.

Sounds Of The Fox

Two new clips, one of Gizmo barking, the other of him warbling (and then wailing when warbling wasn't getting me to go in the room)

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Kisses

Today, I was making Gizmo's food. Now, generally while making it, I take brief breaks to go in, reach through the bars on his play-pen, and rub his ears and let him smell my hands and stuff. This serves two purposes. First off, it reinforces the idea that just because my hands smell like food, doesn't mean I actually have food in them. Secondly, it helps him make the connection as to exactly where his food comes from.

Well, today I went over for one of these mid-cooking visits, and Gizmo was waiting for me, with his nose stuck through the grid and giving air-kisses. I went to hold my hand out for him to lick, but he pulled back, still giving kisses to nothing. I reached in a little further, only to have him back away a few more steps. He then tilted his head and waggled his tail, doing his "Aren't I the cutest thing ever?" look, and then went back to giving air-kisses.

I couldn't resist, I went into the play-pen and sat down, and he immediately pounced into my lap and started giving me kisses all over and just slobbering on me in general. I just wasn't going to get my kisses until I went inside with him; none of this petting him through the grid nonsense.

Some days you train the fox, some days the fox trains you.

New Gizmo Video!

I've gotten a lot of requests to try and get a recording of some of the noises Gizmo makes. A lot of the time, if I'm outside the play pen and he's in it and wants to play, he'll start trilling and barking at me.

We tried to get him to do that on camera, but didn't have much luck. Still, the end video was cute, so I uploaded it anyway. Enjoy!

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The Disappearing Scrambled Egg

This morning, as a bit of a treat, my mom dropped a piece of scrambled egg into Gizmo's bowl. He struck his nose in like he was just sniffing, then whined and looked at her. He then looked under the bowl, around the bowl, up at her hand, etc.

The body language was perfectly readable. "Hey, wait! I thought you put something in here! I didn't get any! Mom, where is it?"

The egg somehow magically vanished while he was "just sniffing". I was pretty impressed at his sleight-of-muzzle, too. You would have never guessed that he'd chewed something and swallowed it--his jaw never moved.

The Daily Health Check

Gizmo gets a health check every morning, and I highly recommend it for all pet owners. It helps you to recognize what's normal for your pet, and lets you catch problems really early on. And, as an added bonus, it gets them used to being handled.

I feel all along his back and sides for any lumps or bumps, his feet and pawpads get looked at to make sure they're in good shape, and I look in his eyes, ears, and mouth. I also check under his tail just to make sure he's keeping the fur there clean and dry.

Important Note: Always end the health-check with ear-rubbings. Otherwise, the fox will be obligated to scream at the top of his lungs to let the entire county know that you're skipping the most important step, and that you're neglecting him.

Red Fox To English Dictionary

If you ever find yourself needing to translate a fox's various noises to English, here is a helpful guide of various vocalizations that he consistently makes, and what they seem to mean.

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A throaty, three-or-five syllable call that roughly means "Someone come here!" He continues to call until someone in the family goes to where he is. It doesn't generally matter if it's a human, the dog, or one of the cats, so long as someone goes to him.

A high-pitched kit-like version of the same call that means "Ragtatter come here!" It is always three syllables, never five. If a different member of my family responds to him while doing this, he will continue to call until I specifically go in to see him. Thus far, I am the only member of the family that he uses a distinct "Come here!" call for.

A short "Awrf?" sort of noise that always ends higher-pitched than it starts. It seems to mean "What's that?" or "Look at that!" and is always accompanied by him staring at the object of his interest.

A lower-pitched "Awrrf!" that he uses whenever he sees a man in our house that is not my dad or brother, generally accompanied by him immediately finding something to pee on. His body language for this is usually very alert, but not aggressive. "Hey! Hey dude! This is my house! Just so you know."

A high-pitched whining, accompanied by ears laid back. Usually accompanied by him opening and closing his mouth as he whines, making an "Ar ar ar ar ar" sound. Generally this means "Someone is being mean to me!", though recently it almost always means "The kitty is teasing me!". He will sometimes hide his face while doing this (i.e. in my lap, down the neck of my shirt), which gives it more of a sobbing sound.

A high-pitched grumbling with a throatier sound to it. Generally this is heard during routine tasks that he dislikes (grooming, nails getting trimmed, baths, etc.) Back when I could walk him, he'd also start doing this when it was time to turn around and come home. Seems to mean "I don't like this!" or "I'm not happy."

A high-pitched warbling sort of noise; we've dubbed it a "Yarwarble". He uses this during play, and will often yarwarble and sink into a play-bow before pouncing or nomming or kicking with his hind legs. It seems to mean "I'm about to do something that might be misconstrued as aggression, but I'm just playing, so don't get scared or mad!"

High-pitched incoherent shrieking. This means "I'm not getting what I want and I'm mad as hell about it!" or "SOMEONE IS STEALING FROM ME!" Generally accompanied by flattened ears and pacing. He does this when dinner is late, or he's not allowed to steal something from the dog, or I won't take him outside when he wants to go outside, or I turn off the cartoons he was watching, or any other little situation where something is "taken away".

"Gekkering." Sort of a gurgling, rattling squawk. Always accompanied by a really intense foxy smell. He only does this when he is REALLY upset or REALLY scared. Not one I see very often, thankfully.

Squealing: Similar to the "Someone is stealing from me!" shriek, but the body language for this is completely different. Generally we hear this one when he gets a particularly good treat, or a new toy. He will pick up the object in his mouth, wag his whole body from his shoulders back, and just squeal at the top of his lungs. Probably means something along the lines of, "I'm so excited I just have to scream about it!"

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Related Posts: 

• Sounds of the Fox
• Giving Animals a Voice

Visit To The Vet

Gizmo went to the vet today (part of why he got his bath today also. Figured I might as well have him mad at me all at once).

He was very, very well-behaved. Didn't scream or squawk or bite or growl the whole time. He was obviously stressed and didn't enjoy it, but he didn't put up a fight either. He even got shots, had blood drawn, the works. Everything checked out OK, and he got sent home with a clean bill of health. He's in fantastic shape. (The vet even asked me if I'd give him a copy of the recipe for Gizmo's noms; I was really flattered.)

Oh, my suspicion that Gizmo was still growing has been officially confirmed. He's nice and lean and well proportioned, but today during his visit he weighed in at nearly 15 lbs (last visit he was more in the neighborhood of 12). I'm not too surprised, though; his dad was a pretty big fox too.

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Unfortunately, there was a down note too. Gizmo seems to have lost quite a bit of his socialization due to the county-enforced isolation. It's been 6 months since he had contact with anyone but me and my mother, and the effects of this isolation on his happy-go-lucky, love-everyone personality are very clear. The one Vet Tech (at least, I think that's what his job title is) used to be one of Gizmo's favorite people. He always greeted him like a happy puppy.

This time around, though, Gizmo sent off just about every fear-signal in the book. Laid his ears back, arched his back, hunkered down to get small, curled his tail, avoided eye contact, whimpered, the works. Nothing aggressive, but lots and lots of fearful and avoidance behavior. It broke my heart to see him act like that around someone he used to love.

Bath

After a solid week of being Impostor Mommy, I'm finally feeling better so my voice is now back to normal. Gizmo was overjoyed to have "me" back, so naturally I had to spoil it by giving him a bath this morning.

I have to admit, he was a pretty good boy during his bath. No screaming or flailing or constantly trying to escape. He DID poop in the tub, but he always does that, so no surprises there.

You're Not My Mommy

There's a little trilling/chirping noise that I often use when I'm greeting Gizmo. It's nothing too fancy, but it is distinctive, and so far as he's concerned I'm the only human in the whole world who "calls" him that way. It's how I usually tell him good morning, how I say hello when I get home, how I answer him when he's doing his "Come play with me!" warble. It's an all-purpose greeting with very positive connotations, and can mean anything from "Hello!" to "Let's play!" to "I see you!".

Well, recently, I've been fighting a sinus infection, and it's had a pretty drastic effect on my voice. Without thinking, I tried to trill at Gizmo anyway, but the sound didn't come out right. It was more of a broken squawk than anything else. Clearly not the sound I've been greeting him with his whole life.

The response was instantaneous, and really quite interesting. He laid his ears back, and shrank away from me, giving me an incredibly wary, suspicious look. When I entered his play pen to play with him, he let out a wail and ran and hid in his play tube. I looked in after him, only to see him crouched at the back, whining and giving me the stink eye. No amount of coaxing could get him to come out.

He doesn't mind playing with me if I forget to trill, but apparently I'm not allowed to trill and get it wrong. After all, if I can't do the "mommy" trill correctly, I must really be an impostor.

The kitty is being mean to me!

Gizmo and my cats have something of an ongoing sibling rivalry. No real aggression, of course, just an ongoing pattern of annoying each other.

This morning, one of our cats, Taz, was sitting with her back to the bars of Gizmo's indoor play yard. I watched as he hunkered down, very carefully crept over to the bars, and swatted her one. She responded by turning around and batting him in the nose about six times.

Gizmo's answer to this was to come limping up to me, whining pitifully. No doubt saying, "Mommy! The bad kitty was being mean to me!". It's like it never once occurs to him that I  SEE him starting it. The limp was a nice touch too--I had no idea that a well-deserved swat on the nose could make you limp.

SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER

Don't worry folks, Gizmo is still alive and well. I've just been having a very busy term at school, and due to the fact that there are no more walks, just not as many interesting things have happened in his life recently. (I was also promoted to moderator on a forum I'm active on, so that's been keeping me busy too.)

Yesterday, I heard him screaming his head off, and went to investigate to see what the source of the drama was. A great big wolf-spider was crawling along outside his play pen, and Gizmo was over at the bars, trying to reach it and shrieking at the top of his lungs. I'm pretty sure that, translated into English, he'd be saying "OMG SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER IT'S A SPIDER!"

Apparently completely oblivious to the screaming fox, the wolf spider crawled a bit too close, and Gizmo scooped it into his play pen, quarry-leaped it to squish it, then crunched it down, wagging his tail.

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His collar also recently wore out, so we had to replace it. I must admit, I've been pretty impressed with that type of collar--it lasted over a year, and Gizmo's pretty rough on his collars. Not only that, it didn't mat his fur up underneath it. If you ever come across them, rolled-leather collars are worth their weight in gold. PetSmart used to carry them, but they don't seem to any more.

Don't Go Without Me!

Tonight I went to take the dog for a walk, and made the mistake of walking her right past Gizmo's window. The poor little guy started to wail and howl since she was getting a walk and he wasn't. Poor little guy; I really wish I could've taken him with me. He needs the exercise, and it was a lovely evening.

When we got back, he "wasn't speaking" to me. Every time I'd go to talk to him, he'd squeal and run into his play-tunnel. He kept that up until it was time for his dinner, then suddenly he was all friendly again.

Happy Birthday Gizmo!

Today is Gizmo's birthday--he's two years old today!

This past year has been a particularly crazy one, but he's in good health, for which I'm thankful.

To celebrate, he got pancakes for dinner, and a brand new toy. The pancakes were small ones (3-4" in diameter), so I just put a little stack of them in his bowl. It turns out, there is a proper etiquette for eating pancakes that I was entirely unaware of.

First, you take each individual pancake out of the dish, and lay them in a line, taking special care to lick each one. Then, you make a little stack with them and set your brand new ball on top of the stack. Then you pick the ball back up, set it in your food dish, and wolf down the pancakes, pausing after each one to squeal loudly.

I'll need to remember this for the next time I'm served pancakes.

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