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Socks the fox, my friend
"I realised that a fox, like a rainbow and every other gift from Nature, had an intrinsic value that was quite independent of its longevity. After that, whenever I questioned devoting so much time to an animal whose lifespan barely exceeded the blink of an eye, I remembered rainbows."
Catherine Raven, Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship
If you’re wondering why I have a fox as a logo, it’s because of my much-loved wild friend, Socks. Socks brightened up my life with her regular visits for six years from 2021 until she suddenly stopped coming in early 2026. So many people got in touch with me after I shared a small part of Socks' story on LinkedIn, and it turned into one of the most beautiful experiences of online connection that I’ve ever had.
So I wanted to write a bit more about Socks and keep her story here, partly because I don’t want her memory to disappear and also I wanted to acknowledge how much this special connection with a wild animal has influenced me and, strangely, my work. I know it’s a bit random for a blog on a fundraising consultancy website! But if you work with me, you’ll undoubtedly hear about Socks or another wild friend at some point.
Socks’ story
When we first met Socks in early 2021, she had awful mange. Sarcoptic mange is sadly very common and ultimately fatal for foxes if untreated. You can recognise a mangy fox if they have missing or very raggedy fur, especially on their tail, and they start to look very thin. It can’t be passed onto pets or humans, but it does spread to other foxes.
Mange is actually very treatable with human intervention – I was so worried about this little skinny fox who was living on our road, who seemed quite confident around people, so a friend (a fundraising friend no less) recommended trying to source a homeopathic mange treatment. We think Socks must have been one of a litter of cubs who were fed by a neighbour of ours, who loved animals but moved away in 2020, and for some reason she stayed around when the others moved on. This meant she was already used to humans when we met her, and so I was confident I could hide mange pills in jam sandwiches and watch her eat them. (Although as a homeopathic medicine, they’re safe for other animals if they accidentally eat them too.)
After a few months her fur grew back and her tail was all bushy, and she turned into the round orange barrel who would become so familiar, meeting me in the road and following me home.
Her favourite food ever after this was jam sandwiches – apparently foxes love sweet things – and I ended up having to ration them as a special treat only. She ate most things as foxes do, but she particularly loved chicken and babybels (excellent taste). I did once find our neighbour feeding her custard creams – not recommended but really cute to watch her carrying them away. She weirdly didn’t understand eggs – I tried to give her an egg one evening, because a fox's natural diet would include eggs from birds’ nests, and she carried it ever so gently in her mouth, put it down a few paces away, stared and sniffed at it in confusion for ages, then came back to me to see if there was anything more edible. I went over and broke it onto the floor to see if that helped. It didn't, and hopefully another animal ate it before our neighbours woke up and thought someone had egged their pavement.
We live down a footpath (heritage fact: a ‘twitten’ in old Sussex) at end of the main street, and Socks started a routine of sitting by the gate and following me down the twitten to the door, where she would be served one of her dinners. Especially when I got back from weekly bellringing practice, she would be there without fail. She would scratch at the door every night to ask for food, and stand with her nose basically glued there until it was opened. She specifically scratched around the door handle; clearly she saw that was what controlled the food hatch. She did this in all weathers, and sometimes when it rained I’d see her sitting or curled up in the porch. She outlasted two of our cats (we adopted old cats!) and they both hated her, but she didn’t seem bothered.
She tried to come in the house several times but we wouldn’t let her do this – I didn’t want her to think this was normal, or become so trusting of humans she might come to harm.
I once fell asleep in our little garden and woke up to see her curled up near me on the grass. Once I actually woke up because she nudged me on the leg. A neighbour friend saw her sitting near me later on and said ‘what a privilege’. It really was.
The year after she recovered from mange, Socks had her first cubs! A neighbour got a video of her with three little ones by his shed and asked me if I could identify her from the clip, and that’s how we also knew for sure she was female. As far as we know, she had cubs every year since although we only ever saw them when they were already quite grown up.
Foxes mate for life, and we began to recognise Mr Socks too (of course he took her name), who would appear each spring and stay to look after the cubs.
Socks had the whole street at her paws – for ages I thought she only scratched at our door for her dinner, but then I got talking to another neighbour and found out she often went to hers for breakfast. I’m so lucky to live somewhere where foxes are widely loved, and I’m friends with many neighbours because of Socks. I got to know one neighbour one evening because we had both been worrying about an injury Socks had, and we found out we had both contacted the same charity within about an hour with photos. The charity must have thought this fox had a fan club, which would be true. Gradually all the neighbours went from calling her ‘the fox’ to ‘the one you call Socks’ to just ‘Socks’.
The average life expectancy of a wild red fox is just 2-3 years, but this is mostly due to roads which account for 60% of all fox deaths. In captivity, they have been recorded living up to 15-20 years. I always thought Socks might have longer because she had no need to travel far and was basically being fed by the whole street. She definitely showed signs of ageing because she no longer jumped over the fences between gardens. But the last time I saw her, she was in her fluffy winter fur and looked very healthy.
When Socks went missing in February, I hoped she was just off having cubs – she used to disappear every spring for a few weeks – but after a month I was really anxious that no one had seen her. I borrowed a wildlife camera from my dad and me and my neighbour spent months putting it out in our gardens and hoping to see her on it the next morning. Other foxes appeared, including eventually some cubs, but no Socks. Foxes do get ousted from their territories and move elsewhere, and she may have finished breeding and had her territory taken over by a younger vixen, but it seems unlikely after ruling the roost for six years and with no obvious injuries or illness. Part of me harbours a secret hope she's still out there somewhere but I know she'd have been back by now. I’ll never know for sure what happened to her, but I hope so much it was peaceful and she wasn't in pain. I grieved for Socks like a pet, and also I grieve the magic of knowing that a wild animal, who was part of our Earth, knew I existed and felt comfortable to sit next to me on the grass.
I know it’s a rare privilege to have had such a connection to a wild being. Socks was a treasured companion and friend and I miss her so much. Also her life was hers and was precious regardless of how she interacted with humans, and would have been a loss even if I didn’t share her photos online so that other people loved her too.
"You don’t need much imagination to see that society has bulldozed a gorge between humans and wild, unboxed animals, and it’s far too wide and deep for anyone who isn’t foolhardy to risk the crossing."
Catherine Raven
But also, she represented a connection between the grey, manmade world that has taken us so far away from our roots in the land, and the world of animals and life and nature that our ancestors would have been so attuned to. And which many cultures were, before colonialism and capitalism spread like a virus. The response to me sharing Socks’ story on LinkedIn, of all places, was overwhelming and wholesome and made me feel like, actually, it was never silly or weird to love a wild animal so much, and I realised that an innate connection to the wild is alive in so many of us.
At a time when I was experiencing, recovering, and rebuilding from burnout, connecting with people over Socks both in my work and non-work worlds also brought me much happiness and, I think, the confidence to just be myself in 'professional' spaces that can sometimes feel fake or forced.
Socks brought neighbours together, she helped people overcome their fear or distrust of foxes who are so often portrayed as cunning villains (unsurprisingly, because foxes eat chickens which have value to humans), and I think she brought joy to lots of people. I loved her very much and hope her impact is in some way lasting.
I happened to be reading Fox and I by Catherine Raven at the time Socks went missing, which my sister gave me for Christmas. I felt too sad to finish reading it this spring but I’ve now finished it and it’s a wonderful, moving description of the relationship people can have with wild animals, something real in a world that feels increasingly false, based on a true story of the author’s friendship with her ‘unboxed’ fox in rural North America. I thought the quote at the top of this post from the book was beautiful and said something I couldn’t find the words for about the inherent preciousness of a wild life, however short.
I also found this poem by Jane Hirshfield, which happens to be about foxes but speaks to the way that sometimes, Nature helps us to see, and to be, our true selves.
Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight
One ran,
her nose to the ground,
a rusty shadow
neither hunting nor playing.
One stood; sat; lay down; stood again.
One never moved,
except to turn her head a little as we walked.
Finally we drew too close,
and they vanished.
The woods took them back as if they had never been.
I wish I had thought to put my face to the grass.
But we kept walking,
speaking as strangers do when becoming friends.
There is more and more I tell no one,
strangers nor loves.
This slips into the heart without hurry,
as if it had never been.
And yet, among the trees, something has changed.
Something looks back from the trees,
and knows me for who I am.
Thank you for reading. Here’s Socks looking bemused at me cleaning a garden statue of a badger I got off Marketplace. Prob jealous.
Links:
The wonderful photos of Socks (not the blurry ones) are by my husband, Daniel Greenwood, who does nature writing and photography: https://danieljamesgreenwood.com/
Red fox information:
Homeopathic mange treatment: https://wildlifeaid.org.uk/product/homeopathic-food-supplement-for-foxes-psorinum/
Further information on the campaign to fully outlaw fox hunting:
Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven:
Poetry by Jane Hirshfield:
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