The Fox and the Poodle

Tales from the backyard…  People save both vacation time and money to make, for maybe once in their life, a trip to one of our grand National Parks.  Living in one is an enjoyment one cannot express.  We called them, “our back yard”.   When I first started my career in the Park Service at Crater Lake there was a no dog rule.  We had a dog.  We had made arrangements to give our toy poodle (for those who know me, can you believe it) away the next week and got permission to keep her for that long.  About the third evening, I let her go outside to do her thing and just then a fox ran across the back yard.  What a beautiful sight, it was the black faze of the red fox and her spring outfit contrasted elegantly with the 4 feet of snow left on the ground in May.  They spotted each other at the same moment and off went the poodle before I could grab her.  The fox took off at a very slow trot, just fast enough to stay ahead of “Tiger” (the dogs name), who was determined to catch it, what then, who knows.  When the fox had lured her, what she thought was far enough away, she spun around and the tide was turned.  Instantly and luckily for Tiger, she also got the point and spun around and onward they came, hell bent for election.   I didn’t think poor Tiger could run that fast but I guess when you have to, you will.  When the fox got to close, Tiger somehow put on the after-burner and made it back to the porch just in time.  No tasty meal for the fox that night.  We didn’t laugh until much later.  We gave her away to a 10 yo boy in town who carried her everywhere in the basket of his bike.