During the past week, I had two hints that a red fox family is about to break up. The first was the roadkill sighting of a young red fox pup. The second was when questioned by a man as to why a fox would be coming up the steps to his back porch. I asked whether he had either cat or dog food in a dish on the porch.

The man replied that he did not. I then told him that it was probably a young fox pup that left the den on its own and was not yet wise enough to avoid humans.

While working, I could always tell when the fox families were breaking up because I would receive many phone calls, with the conversations going like this: “I have a fox in my yard that is acting strange.”

The fox sits at the edge of the yard and watches the kids play. After a while it comes to the porch and eats the cat’s food. Usually, the last question is, “do you think the fox has rabies?”

When the fox family breaks up, it’s like sending your child off to college for the first time. You have raised the young man or woman for 18 years and tried to teach them all about life, hoping that the training has sunk in. A young fox out on its own for the first time does not know enough to be afraid of humans.

Although mom and dad’s training on how to survive on their own went through spring and summer, the young pups still have a lot to learn. If they make it through the first fall and winter, they will become very crafty animals.

As summer progresses their training continues as the pups start accompanying mom and dad on short hunting trips, where they learn to catch mice and earthworms by watching and imitating their parents. One book states that a young fox could eat as many as 200 earthworms a night.

As fall approaches the young pups will venture out on their own for several days but they will return to the den. Eventually, they leave the den and do not return. When this occurs the family unit breaks up, with the adults again becoming solitary animals.

The red fox’s scientific name is vulpes fulva. In Latin, vulpes means fox, and fulva means yellow. Despite its name the red fox is not red but a deep burnt rust to a palest of golden yellow. The darkest color is down the center of the fox’s back and behind the head.

Of course, there is black on the legs, and the tail always has a white tip.

Our word fox literally means “tailed animal” because the fox’s tail is perhaps its most distinctive feature. In Spanish, the fox is called raposa, which is a derivative of rabo, meaning tail. In Welsh, the fox is called llwynog, meaning bushy tail, which comes from llwyn, meaning bush.

In the Christian world, the red fox is not held in high esteem. The fox plays a prominent role as a trickster and is seen as a wily, crafty and cunning animal. The Bible mentions raids made by foxes on ripening grapes in the vineyards of ancient Israel. This is probably what inspired Aesop to write about the fox and the grapes.

Aesop was a Greek slave who was given the credit for writing the many fables about animals and nature that always ended with a moral. Although he often wrote about the fox, this is my favorite:

“A fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the fox’s mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.

“The bunch hung from a high branch, and the fox had to jump high. The first time he jumped he missed by a long way. So, he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again, he tried, but in vain.

“Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust.

“What a fool I am,” he said. “Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for.”

“And off he walked very, very scornfully.”

The moral? There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach.

There are different color phases of the red fox. The silver fox is black, with the tips of the guard hairs tinged with silver, giving the fox a frosty appearance. The cross-fox, which has a dark brown stripe down the center of its back and another at the withers (shoulder area), forming a cross.

Then, there is the Samson fox, which is not a color phase but a skin condition, giving the appearance that the hair has been burned or scorched. The under hair is produced but not guard hairs.

The name comes from the Bible in Judges 15, verses four and five: “So, Sampson went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied their tails together in pairs, with a torch between each pair. Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the fields of the Philistines, burning the grain to the ground along with all the sheaves and shocks of grain, and destroying the olive garden.”

During the coming month, be prepared to see a red fox where you would not normally see one. This is only a young red fox out on his own for the first time.