Half Dog, Half Cat

It’s Thanksgiving morning. I’m dog-sitting and reminded of a funny/weird/favorite pet experience.

Near the end of my junior year in college I got a wild idea. (That’s not unusual. I get my share.) I decided I needed an exotic pet. Which is what happens when you spend all your warm, sunny college afternoons in dank, dark geology labs memorizing rocks, minerals, and microscopic fossils with names like homotrema rubrum, thinking if only I’d majored in English I could be outside under a tree reading a book and looking at girls.

So I called around to the local pet stores looking for……a skunk. Somehow I’d got it into my head that the odor-free variety make good pets. They could evidently be trained to use a litter box, with the added bonus of being small enough to hide in your book bag. Plus, a loose skunk running around the undergrad geology cellars would definitely freak the heck out of the other prisoners. And if I ever did get outside on campus, maybe even help me meet girls. Adventurous ones.

Unfortunately, the pet stores did not have any skunks. I was running out of hope, disappointment mounting, when, at the very last store in the yellow pages, a woman told me they were fresh out of skunks, but they did have a baby fox.

A fox? A baby fox. As a pet? Wow. Cooler even than a skunk, maybe.

It was love at first sight. He was 5 weeks old, barely weaned, and a little bundle of fuzzy energy. Also very high on the cuteness scale. I happily forked over the 25 bucks and took him back to the apartment I shared with two bewildered roommates. For some reason I can’t remember, I named him Mort.

Mort soon won over my pals and we were a happy little family. He learned to pee and poop outdoors and in a litter box. He liked to play with a ball and even fetch it. He was fun and curious and affectionate. We had a great time with him.

Except once when he mangled me. I learned early on that eating was a primal event. If anybody got too close while he was killing and maiming his puppy chow, he’d growl threateningly. It seemed comical for a tiny fox to growl like he could actually cause bodily harm, and in my superior human wisdom I decided this was bad manners he needed to be trained out of. So the next time he ate, growling by my feet, I reached down and nudged him with a firm “No!” As fast as you can blink, he turned and chomped cleanly through my thumbnail.

Sharp little fangs. Very sharp. After that I let him eat however he wanted to.

But the best part was when friends came over. I purposely didn’t let anybody know about him, because baby foxes don’t really look like foxes. Their snouts haven’t grown out so they have little short noses. Their tails haven’t gotten all bushy and glorious like they do later. Their pointed ears are still small and stand straight up. And even a baby red fox, like Mort, is dull gray as a pup.

So what they look like, more than anything, is a kitten.

People would come by and see Mort scampering around the house, exploring new territory, conquering various dangerous prey like his tail, and they’d exclaim, “You got a new kitten!” I would just smile. Because within a few minutes, Mort would sit up and start barking like a puppy.

Jaws hit the floor. Eyeballs bulged. Nobody got it. Nobody thought “fox!” Universally the reaction was amazement, dumbfoundedness. The next question was always, “What is that?”

Then it got even more fun. I’m not making this up. Almost everybody believed me when I told them something impossible: that Mort was a cross between a cat and a dog.

And yes, these were college students. Man, that was funny.

_______

I ended up moving to Taos, New Mexico for the summer to oversee a swimming pool, restaurant, bar, and driving range on some land outside of town. Since we were the only public pool in Taos, everybody and their kids came to swim. Mort grew bigger and redder and was a big hit with the customers. Kids loved to play with him. Mostly I kept him on a 30 foot chain during the day, and at night he’d sleep in the house with me.

Finally when he was about 4 months old he looked beautiful. Very fox-like. Auburn red, and with a big bushy tail. I started to feel guilty about keeping him on a chain. Our property was way out of town and there was a lot of open land. No neighbors close by. I decided it was time to turn him loose and see what happened.

For a couple of weeks it was great. I let him sleep outside wherever he wanted. Every morning he’d show his love, gratitude, and devotion by leaving a dead prairie dog on my doorstep. He’d come when I called and we’d play with a ball. I fed him every evening.

But after two weeks he stopped coming. I don’t know what happened. It’s possible he was shot by a farmer or killed by dogs. But it’s equally likely he found a foxy girlfriend and had a long, happy life raising pups, exploring the countryside, and dining on prairie dogs. Or maybe wild turkeys.

Happy Thanksgiving, Mort.

© 2008 Greg Tamblyn, Motivational Humorist and fox afficionado.