So about two seconds after I opened the crate and climbed onto the bed out popped Flash. Well his head!
He looked round to see my on the bed and then went back into his crate. This peak-a-bo lasted for about an hour. Each time he had a cheekier look on his face. He then vanished for about 10 mins and I heard their odd croaking.
Yes you read right, croaking. Corsacs seem not to bark or scream like a Fennec, they just sort of croak to one another really quietly. Alternatively they grumble to one another, this is also really quiet. This may change when they are more settled.
Flash seemed to be telling Elspeth what he had been up to but she seemed not to want to join in.
So then I went back to my book, I thought he was going to stay in his crate with Elspeth but no I was very wrong. I looked to the end of the bed and next to my drawers there was sat that cheeky fox watching me. He seemed quite pleased that I looked at him as it meant we could continue our game.
Flashy became more and more bold as the evening went on slowly moving higher and higher up the side of the bed until he was level with my pillow. I was very pleased with his progress. The fact that he was clearly coming up with a game for the two of us to play was great but then he went a step further, he went up on two legs and put his front paws on the bed!
At this my partner was very un impressed. Flashy should have been coming up his side of the bed, not mine! Flashy is his fox hehe.
We swapped sides of the bed so as that Flashy would walk up to him and they could play.
So Flashy poked his head out of the crate and noticed that second that it was not the person who he was playing with who was there so he started the game over again..
When 30mins in he was level with my other half's hand he went over and had a sniff and ran off again.
Upon return he bit his finger!
I believe he was trying to play but was a bit over excited. There was blood everywhere. Though their teeth are very small (the second smallest fox teeth apparently) they pearce like needles as puppy teeth do. I was shocked by the sheer amount of blood but it stopped about 10 seconds into the bleeding as the holes were so small. I was going to take a photo of any wounds that we acquired during the keeping of foxes but there really is nothing to photograph. I was also quite shocked when my other half told me it did not actually hurt very much, not half as much as when my flying squirrel bit him.
My other half and Flash continued the evening as though nothing had happened. Flash was told 'NO' when he bit and it seems to have done the trick as he did not bite again that evening.
I, unlike the boys was having no luck bonding with my fox. I tried giving her some cooked chicken which she turnt her nose up at, I tried some dried mealworms (they eat allot of insects in the wild) but she did not want those either. I tried to pet her and she went into her defensive pose and croaked at me but then I went around the other side of the crate. She had her back to me which is never a good place to start, I hate being sneaked up on but I was there and she did not want me near her face. I reached my hand through the bars and scratched her lower back where she had a huge chunk of fur that needed brushing out. She did not look too pleased so I stopped. She started to stare at me so I wondered what on Earth she wanted. I then decided that when I was scratching her back she had stopped croaking at me so I tried again. She looked quite pleased with me. I was allowed to scratch her back for quite a while before she wandered off and went to sleep.
So it seems that whole 'You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' works in the fox world as well. She got her back scratched and I got to pet my fox!
Then bedtime came around and Flash did not want to go to bed. He was playing and he did not really want to stop even if the human playing with him was falling to sleep. So during one of his visits to tell Elspeth what had been going on I quickly closed the door on his crate. He was not impressed. He stood facing the door and jumped up and down, yes with all four paws leaving the ground in some kind of mini hissy fit. It was very cute!
This morning I woke up, lay facing the foot of my bed and saw the two of them sound asleep, clearly they had a busy night! I was still amazed. It was like I had woken from a dream and taken something from the dream with me into the real world.
I looked at what they were sleeping on. It seemed to be a mixture of clothing that I had worn in the last two days...It seemed I had placed my washing basket a bit too close to where they were sleeping and they just took what they thought looked comfortable. Apparently things to keep out of reach of them include bras, skirts (of which they had two of), boxer shorts, socks and half a pair of jeans. Must remember not to allow them near clothing shops...
So after getting ready for the day and letting them (by them I mean Flashman, Elspeth once more did not want to come out) out for a play I went to the pet shop to get them each a collar. I had spent £50- on each of them to get them each a small dog harness and collar. At the time I got the collars and harnesses I did not think the foxes were quite as small as they are. I mean everything I have read about them says 'the size of a red fox' or 'the size of a small red fox'. I really should have engaged my brain when I read that they are closely related to the swift fox and come to my own conclusion. However I did not and we should not dwell in the past. So off to the pet shop I went to get them each a puppy collar and a cat harness.
In the pet shop I was tempted to get Elspeth a pale pink one with flowers all over it but my other half rolled his eyes and informed me: 'If you think she hates you now just wait till you put that on her...' . So I went with one with all different colour stripes along it. The other half chose a leather one with metal bones around it. I think it looks a bit to canine for Flash but I am sure he would look lovely in anything.
We then had the issue at the tag machine of what do we put on Flashmans tag. I mean do we put Harry, Flashman or Flashy? We know you are not ment to confuse an animal by calling them all different names but we are still not 100% what to call him. We know it will be one of the above. So we went with Harry Flashman. Seeing as anything we will call him is a shortening of that it made sense.
When we returned home we played with our flying squirrels for a while but then retired to our room to play with the foxes which is where I type from now via my laptop. We had planned to let them have a play outside but with the rain and winds how they are at the moment I really doubt they would thank us for it, well that combined with the fact the gardener has not been able to finish the enclosure yet due to said weather.
We are all having a lovely evening at present. Elspeth is curled up sleeping, Flashman is playing with my other half and I am typing with The Pixies playing in the background (Pixies the band not the things that live in the garden hehe.) while the rain and wind beat on the windows.
What a typically English evening,
Good night!
PS: Please excuse the bad photo quality of the first two photos, they were taken on a phone.
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