Family Comes Face-To-Face With ‘Unknown’ Animal In Their Own Backyard

Dark eyes surrounded by a piercing yellow glared at them from the corner of the yard. This alone was alarming, but something about the way the creature was sitting made sirens go off in David’s head. The creature was crouching, its black and silver fur bristling in the wind.

That was another odd thing about the creature: Its fur. Its black, coarse fur stood out against the morning sky. David knew he should run, but his feet were frozen to the ground…until the animal started to walk towards him.

David didn’t need to see anything else. He grabbed his son and ran back into the house, slamming the door behind him. He peered through the glass door at the animal, expecting to see its bared teeth or sharp claws.

“He’d gone out with the baby and I heard him shouting that there’s a wild animal,” David’s partner, Anna, later said. “He was a bit panicked about it.” Could you blame him? Alsager wasn’t exactly known for its mysterious black-and-white predators.

When Anna joined David in watching the animal from the window, however, what she saw was no blood-thirsty predator. The animal’s once-glaring eyes looked up at David and Anna with curiosity. He almost looked…cute? What was this thing?

It was too big to be a cat and its tail was too bushy to belong to a dog. He looked like a fox, but the strange coloring of its fur was throwing Anna off. What really surprised the couple, however, was what the animal did next.

After making sure the area was clear of any threats, the mystery animal started lounging like he owned the place! The family wasn’t as freaked out as they had been, but they wanted to figure out what to do next.

So, Anna hopped online to search for answers. She described the animal on Facebook and included some photos. She wasn’t expecting any ‘bites’ but that’s exactly what she got — and from an expert, no less, who immediately knew what to do.

It didn’t take long for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) to come knocking on Anna’s inbox door through a representative named Amanda Lovett.

From its pointy snout to its salt-and-pepper fur, Amanda quickly pointed out that this was no dog or cat. It was, indeed, a fox — a silver fox, to be exact! And according to Amanda, this particular silver fox was unlike its relatives.

On top of the animal NOT being a dog, it was severely endangered. Silver foxes are hunted illegally every year, making David and Anna’s random encounter even more unusual. Their new houseguest filled them with questions…especially once they noticed another odd trait.

Where’d this one come from, and why was it in this suburban backyard? Amanda was quick to mention how unlike its relatives, this particular silver fox was slightly overweight. With that, the animal’s strange backstory finally started to come together.

This was supposedly a wild fox, but he had the belly of a domesticated dog. Plus, once the initial shock of seeing David wore off, the fox was just as calm and friendly as a pet dog, too. This endangered animal, Amanda deduced, was actually someone’s pet!

David and Anna’s first instinct was to wait for the fox to leave, but that wasn’t happening. On the contrary, the fox pawed at their back door, trying to get in. That’s when they came up with Plan B: If they were going to help the poor fox, they needed to catch it.

Amanda Lovett and her team at RSPCA were happy to help the silver fox find its way back home, but doing so was tougher than it seemed. Foxes are sly creatures at heart, and this one, domesticated or not, was no exception.

Luckily, Amanda was able to lure the fox into a crate. He went from David’s backyard to the Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre, where he quickly became a favorite among the staff. They named him Shadow, and finally tried to solve the mystery as to where he came from.

The problem was, Shadow had no collar, no microchip, nothing — the only indication that he had been someone’s pet and not a captive creature was the fact that he was relaxed around humans. They put his photos online, but no one claimed him.

The wildlife center knew that Shadow would never survive in the wild, so they did the only thing they could do: They found him a home where he could live happily as both a wild and domestic fox…and no, it wasn’t in David and Anna’s backyard!

As happy as the ending of Shadow’s story is, not every animal has such good luck. All around the world, foxes live in deplorable conditions, kept alive solely for their soft fur.