Ever after, I have been quietly self-debating...Sure, I'd seen pictures of coyotes before and I'd seen pictures of foxes before, and I'd seen one coyote recently, from a distance....in some tall grass...Was that a coyote sitting on the hill behind us watching us? Was it instead, for example, a fox that my imagination super-inflated into a coyote? At one point, my "It was a fox, dopey" theory gained credence when I came upon a little boy walking his dog in the neighborhood.Sparkle: "Hi! So, have you seen a fox around here?"
Boy: "Yep! There's one right on this street."
Sparkle: "Oh. I think I saw one not far from here. It's a pretty big fox, huh?"
Boy: "Naw, it's little--well, the usual size! It was running through our yard in the middle of the day, kinda weaving back and forth. It looked kinda weird. Like it was drunk! I wouldn't walk on this road, if I were you. We live right here [points to house behind him], and we only walk Bailey this far right now."
Sparkle: "Oh."
So...the fox might be...rabid?
Next day, drivin' down the road, I SAW a cute little fox--kinda like this one:
I had three thoughts when I saw the fox: (1) BRAKES! (2) SO cute, so scrawny. Poor little thing. I hope it doesn't have rabies. (3) Holy crap, how did I convince myself that's what I saw? This is what was standing on the hill behind us:
Enough about me: Check out the Narragansett Bay Coyote Study's website! They do really interesting and important work.
