Renard

The call came on a Sunday morning – a kindly couple had seen a baby fox lying in front of its den alone and weak. They placed him in front of the opening hoping his mother would take him in, but she acted as if he were non-existent. We drove down to pick up the tiny red thing and brought it home. He seemed to be about a month old. His mother had to have taken care of him to have reached that age. Why did she abandon him? He seemed a bit dazed, uninterested in food or water. At first we couldn’t understand why he was abandoned. Renard thrived, happily destroying anything in the house he could get his teeth into—which was everything, considering his agility. One day we looked over to see him standing stock-still and looking odd. He seemed disoriented and frightened and didn’t seem to know where he was. The episode passed but a few days later he fell to the floor in convulsions. We rushed him to the vet, who diagnosed severe epilepsy. We treated him with delight.