Fox and Hound

Certain sounds bring you out of a sound sleep, instantly. The twang of a body hitting your five-foot-high wire fence is one of them.

I'd thought I was immensely clever last night leaving the sliding glass door unlocked, so big dog Monty could open it when he needed to go out this morning. I was exhausted and desperately needing sleep (Lucy having awakened me the previous night during a thunderstorm, and I couldn't get back to sleep).

I bolt out of bed and pull on the first pair of sneakers I find, fly downstairs and into the yard, Lucy with me. Monty is running back and forth through the woods in my yard, clearly tracking something. A deer, I think. A deer jumped the fence, hit it on the way over, and he's tracking it. No problem.

And then I see something orange flash past.

A cat, I think at first. I call Lucy, the Obedient, and put her back in the house. I know not to try to call Monty, the Runner. Although right now he is being Monty, Wild Warrior Dog. On the Hunt.

The orange flash streaks past again. It's a fox, long and lithe, running fast.

And therein ensues an wild game of chase in my rather large yard (it's a two-plus acre lot), with me as a pajama-clad referee, futilely trying to grab Monty as he dashes past. The fox is smart, making huge laps, Monty significantly behind. I pull off the extra bit of fencing covering the bottom of the side-yard gate, hoping the fox will sense the opening as he dashes past, but two more laps and he doesn't. The fox is slowing, and I see him clearly as he runs past, bushy tail straight behind him, long and low to the ground. I resolve to pull a Boris Becker the next time Monty passes, to dive at him headlong and somehow, desperately, grab him.

Another twang on the fence, near the kitchen door and then wild barking, and I run around, fearing the worst: mangled fox or full-on battle. But no. The fox is cornered. He's sitting with his back against the corner formed by the kitchen sliding glass door and fence, eying us over the lawn mower I've left there. Monty, however, is the perfect gentleman, and lets me grab his collar and take him around the house and back inside.

Through the sliding glass kitchen door I eye the fox. It is beautiful and young and small, panting heavily, but seems calm. But I think he's calculating angles and odds, and if Monty had moved in, he probably would have springboarded off the lawn mower or off the fence and eluded him. (And yes, now I regret not grabbing a camera, but at 6 something in the morning when trying to avert mayhem, you don't always think clearly - so this isn't actually a photo of my fox.)

I consider trying to reach through the sliding door to open the gate behind him, but remember in time that Things That Can Go Wrong Often Do (it's been that sort of week). To avoid madness of fox running through the house with four dogs in pursuit, I retreat, exit the living room door and open the gate from the other side. Fox of course runs the wrong way, back into the yard.

I walk the yard and see scurrying, and pray the fox has found the gate. I go inside and wait a bit, and then walk the yard with Lucy and see where the fox probably squeezed under the fence in the first place. No sign of fox. I let out the other dogs, with Monty on a leash, and we carefully walk the perimeter. No fox.

I sleepily feed the dogs, drink a glass of water (fox chasing is thirsty business) and we traipse back upstairs to bed.

Welcome, Vermont morning.