Willow is a vixen and Hank, well, he has a real big heart.
The unlikely friendship between the two — she’s a young female fox and he’s a three-year-old Newfoundland dog — is shaping up to be a summer delight for Wendy Poselyzny, who lives with Hank on an acreage south of Stony Plain, Alta.
Poseluzny describes Hank as a gentle giant who accepts anything she brings home, be it a donkey or an injured robin. When the fox showed up on the property a few months ago, Hank gave her a proper tail-wagging welcome.
“Just one day she appeared,” Poseluzny said. “She just follows the dog everywhere. He’s an inside dog, but when we let him out they’re stuck together.”
Poseluzny figures the fox, who she has named Willow, is three to five months old. She’s shy and keeps her distance when people are around but is never far from Hank.
“It doesn’t bother him at all,” she said. “He actually gets down and plays with her and chases her and they chase each other back and forth. It’s pretty funny to watch”
Apart from Willow using the deck to do her business, Poseluzny doesn’t see a downside to having a fox befriend her hound.
At least not yet.
“I like having her around,” she said. “Until she eats one of my goats.”
