The Fox and His Calling Card

Ollie, our four year old Cairn Terrier, is quite the guard dog. He dashes at birds, pursues squirrels and goes berserk when he spies a fox. Unfortunately, he loses his cool quite often since the neighbourhood foxes pass through our yard regularly. This morning Ollie started his mad barking, so I looked out the window of our second floor master bedroom, which gives me a view over the tall hedge into our neighbour's yard, and spied a fox. It's not the larger one I've seen most recently, but it's still an adult.

Too lazy to retrieve the good camera from the daughter's room, I snapped a few pics with my phone while Ollie was going ape. Upon hearing Ollie's crazed barking, the fox immediately took a poop. I'm assuming he was marking his territory against a very vocal assault before he blithely loped to the back hedge and shimmied beneath it to escape the doggie ruckus.

The fox poop is quite prevalent, showing up on our back lawn, back patio and Ollie's fetch balls in the backyard. And even nasty piles left on our front drive. 

It's a veritable biology lesson, having to clean up the scat, because it's plain to see what the foxes have been eating. It appears that seeds and berries are common staples in their diets. I'm glad I bought an overabundance of cheap scented dog poo bags because it seems they come in handy for picking up after the local wildlife.