Can a fox be domesticated as a pet?

Question

I was watching "Fox and the Hound" tonight (after fifteen years!) and I was thinking to myself, whether one could keep a fox as a pet...they are so cute!

Answer 1

Actually you can, trust me

(I myself have 7 lemurs, 2 galapagos turtles 12 Wasuki( African cows )

And a Reptile Room.)

The question is if your really up to dealing with an ooriginallywild animal with years of evolution against you, but after they warm up to you its like having a cat...only bigger.

Answer 2

No fox cannot be domesticated.

And yes I am your sister.

Answer 3

In short, no.  The difference between a domesticated pet and a wild animal such as a fox is almost always hundreds of years of human/animal co-existence. Gradual inter-species acceptance and tolerance occurred when the most accepting of the animals stayed around and bred with others of their kind with similar behaviors and temperament.  Thus reinforcing the 'domestic' traits.

There are sometimes exceptions, and there are experts who understand how to live with and properly understand wild animals... sometimes.  But as a rule a wild animal is just that, a wild animal and never quite settles into the life of being a pet.  Resulting in a very depressed a confused animal and a disappointed human.

They sure do look cute in the movies though, don't they?  

Answer 4

They may be cute, however it would be wrong to take a wild animal and trap it. That is essentially what you would do. Also, no matter how well you think that you have a wild animal trained, they are still wild and may be dangerous even after years of love from you. Don't do it.

Answer 5

you should watch the French film "The Fox and the Child". it's about a young girl who wanders in a forrest every season and she becomes fascinated with a fox. she slowly gains the fox's trust and they become buddies. but it wasn't good enough for the girl so she brings the fox into her home, attempting to keep her, the fox, as a pet. but the poor fox gets scared and confused and she hurts herself by breaking through a window to escape...

erm... okay, maybe you shouldn't watch it as i just told you the main part, lol! but my point is, sometimes it's better to appreciate an animal from afar than trying to make it something it's not.

Answer 6

I would say yes, based on the Russian experiment.  Since foxes have a short gestation period, it is easy to breed in specific traits over a relatively short period of time.  

The Tame Silver Fox is the result of nearly 50 years of experiments in the Soviet Union and Russia to domesticate the silver morph of the Red Fox. Notably, the foxes not only become more tame, but more dog-like as well: the new foxes lost their distinctive musky "fox smell", became more friendly with humans, put their ears down (like dogs), wagged their tails when happy and began to vocalize and bark like domesticated dogs. The breeding project was set up by the Soviet scientist Dmitri Belyaev.

Scientists were interested by the topic of domestication, and how wolves were able to become tame, like dogs. They saw some retention of juvenile traits by adult dogs: both morphological ones such as skulls that were unusually broad for their length, and behavioural ones such as whining, barking, and submissiveness.

Belyaev believed that the key factor selected for domestication of dogs was not size or reproduction, but behaviour; specifically amenability to domestication, or tamability. More than any other quality, Belyaev believed, tamability must have determined how well an animal would adapt to life among humans. Because behavior is rooted in biology, selecting for tameness and against aggression means selecting for physiological changes in the systems that govern the body's hormones and neurochemicals.

Belyaev decided to test his theory by domesticating foxes; in particular the Russian Silver Fox. He placed a population of them in the same process of domestication, and he decided to submit this population to a strong selection pressure for inherent tameness.

The result is that Russian scientists now have a number of tame foxes which are fundamentally different in temperament and behaviour from their wild forebears. Some important changes in physiology and morphology are now visible, such as mottled or spotted colored fur. Many scientists believe that these changes related to selecting for tameness are caused by lower adrenaline production in the new breed, which causes these physiological changes in a very small number of generations, thus allowing for these new genetic offshoots not present in the original species.

Answer 7

No, they are wild animals and very hyper and cannot be contained without pacing back and forth. They are not pet material.

Answer 8

yes look on youtube