As you have seen in the first instalment of this story, the best animal friend I ever had was a fox called “Widdle”. He taught me more of value than 90% of my teachers ever did. And Widdle, he also learnt a little bit.
Widdle, of course, soon learnt which way his sausage was buttered.
The usual scenario was that he would be out on “Lone Hunter’s Patrol”, looking for geese and turkeys, hurtling round the gardens at top speed:
And then he would hear me calling his name :
And then he would come up the path to the patio
And then he’d let you know why he was here:
And then he’d take a sausage or two from you. He was quite prepared to touch you and he wasn’t afraid :
If he was hungry he would often eat the first one, but otherwise he would put it on the floor and then come for a second sausage. He could always be trusted to carry two sausages in his mouth, and as he grew older and more experienced, he managed to carry three. Here, he seems happy to take just two. As we human thick-heads eventually worked out, neither of them were for him:
Now for the second:
A very tricky manoeuvre :
And then it’s “Up, up and Away !!!
His wife, Mrs Widdle, will get her share of the two sausages, but only if the cubs, up to four of them usually, have had their fill. I was always 100% sure that in the rather extensive fox family, Widdle, the individual who provided all the food, was always the last to eat any.
A lesson for us all. And not just in sausage eating.
John Knifton 