To Fix a Fox
No good deed goes unpunished.
Two months and three days ago, I was sitting in my idling car at a 105-acre cemetery 45 minutes from my cottage, scrolling Google for someplace nearby to grab takeout. Movement caught my eye, and I looked up to find a scrawny, mange-covered fox staring at me. He was close—closer than any wild animal I’d ever encountered in daylight—and appeared desperate. His crusted-over eyes bored into mine.
“This sick fox has chosen me,” I thought. “I am going to fix this fox.”
I immediately launched into action as only an obsessive researcher could. Over the next week, I:
Contacted a local wildlife rehab, who told me they couldn’t trap the fox, but they’d accept him for treatment if I could catch and transport him.
Phoned the cemetery, who informed me that I’d need a permit to trap him on their grounds.
Messaged local fish and wildlife, animal control, and the township—none would assist me with trapping.
Called the community college bordering the cemetery, whose facilities director gave me permission to trap if I ever encountered him there.
Attempted to buy or borrow a trap big enough for a fox. Failed.
Researched mange medication options so I could treat him in the field, which resulted in me purchasing a $70 prescription-only one-dose pill from a bootleg veterinary website.
Amid this flurry of outreach and Google searches, I inadvertently launched the most exhausting version of a group project I’ve endured this side of high school science class. I found a Facebook group for the wealthy suburban town within which I’d spotted the fox and composed a post in hopes that someone might see him regularly and offer me a place to stake out.
I clearly and simply stated how I was handling the situation and what I needed. Naturally, mayhem ensued. Within a few hours, the post received 268 likes and 176 comments. A few, ahem, distinct personalities fluttered to the forefront.
There was A, who hijacked the thread and “well, actually”-ed each response, concurrently managing to upset everyone while contributing absolutely nothing useful to the discourse.
And C, who ignored the details of my initial post and contacted all the same organizations I’d just called, causing mass confusion and forcing me to continually explain to her that, yes, I’d already tried that next option.
Further whipping the frenzy of anti-help, the pill took 15 days to arrive. Knowing that foxes with extreme mange sometimes die within weeks, my anxiety was at an all-time high. To boot, I received Facebook DMs like this almost daily.
Medication finally—blessedly—in hand, I made the 45-minute (each way!) trip to the cemetery two more times. During my second attempt, I befriended the evening security guard Stan, who generously let me stay after closing. Just as the sun dipped behind the headstones, a fox crept from the far-off undergrowth bordering the manicured lawn. Certain it was my guy, I hastily ripped open the pill’s foil container and plunked it in a fresh can of fishy cat food, then set it on the grass.
As he inched closer, I realized he was larger than the fox I’d seen—and completely mange-free. I fished the pill out, wiped it off, and watched him empty the can, my heart sinking further with each ravenous slurp. Not only did the sick fox still elude me, but now I’d unsealed the costly medication and set it on a sped-up course to expiration. The hands on my countdown clock spun in double time.
By late October, none of my local sources had seen the fox in weeks and I was prepared to give up, assuming he’d succumbed to his illness. Then this post appeared on the town's Facebook page.
I, quite frankly, lost my mind—I furiously typed an impassioned response about how I’d been tracking him since September 20th and had medication to feed him, embroiling myself in yet another social media shitshow.
The original poster told me she’d message me when he returned. I explained—heart in my throat—that I live 45 minutes away and would prefer to plan ahead. When was he appearing in her yard? Could I stop by her house at that time tomorrow?
She went silent on me for the better part of the day. But fear not, y’all—my old know-it-all so-and-so A was back in the thread to regulate each and every comment that rolled through in the interim.
She seems fun.
The poster eventually responded that she’d gotten mange medication and would feed the fox the following morning. I was, frankly, enraged—hadn’t I already explained I was on the case? I desperately wanted to conduct this rescue mission to its music-swelling Disney ending.
Two days later, I DMed the poster to confirm he’d been fed. By then I’d cooled down—the fox was being helped, one way or another, which was all that mattered. But she told me he’d since evaded her, and was still on the run. The triumphant soundtrack within crescendoed.
And so yesterday marked my third try at the cemetery. I drove slowly around the grounds, my eyes peeled for a flash of scabby orange fluff, then parked in the back corner where we had our first encounter. I sat for as long as the day’s schedule would allow, only realizing I was adjacent to this grave when I moved to pull away.
An auspicious sign, I reasoned. I allowed a fresh gust of hope to propel me to a nearby neighborhood where, according to the Facebook group, the fox had recently been spotted. I circled and circled, eventually setting curtains aflutter. Before I aroused further suspicion with neighborhood watch, I called it a day again (again, again).
Katie luck, indeed.
The fox remains an unfinished sentence jangling around my head like a stone in a shoe. “Just put me out of my misery and add a period!” the grammatically-inclined writer within begs.
But—whether I’m driven by a sense of duty to a suffering creature, the stubborn need to usher a goal to completion, or the fact that I really don’t want that $70 pill to go to waste—I absolutely, positively cannot