Service Foxes and You

Service Foxes and You

This section in Foxing: A Standard Field Manual is not comprehensive. The intricacies of foxes are too vast to be contained in such a short booklet.

Should you seek further reading on the subject of Church foxes, consult the following publications: Foxing: Advanced Concepts, Riley Bangert; Red Fang, Charles J. Mous; By the Hair of the Fox, Edward Neelan; Of Foxes and Men, Jordan Dreyer.

We will begin with birth and kit selection for talented foxes.

Kit Selection

Not all foxes are born equal. Kits given to young Foxers are just that — kits; infants in the fox world. Their talents and obedience are yet to develop (alongside the Foxer’s), which means it’s up to the young pad foot to determine the right kit for them, rather than the other way around.

Kit selection, much like candidate selection, follows established criteria that pad foots should adhere to. The standards are:

• Robust immune system; no disease or noticeable ailment
• Standout agility and motor skills
• Extrasensory perception; the fox is drawn towards relics and away from anomalies
• General and practical intelligence
• Training potential
• Temperament

It can be difficult, as a pad foot, to find the right kit. Though it varies by academy, many offer two-week grace periods in which the pad foot can renounce their role, or their fox. The Academy devised this grace period for pad foots who might not have chosen the right fox or are unsure about joining the Foxers.

Foxer and Fox: Pair-Bonding

The most important part of our work as Foxers isn’t bringing home valuable relics, plotting journeys across Purgatory, or taking the fight to the heretics. It’s our relationship to our fox.

To a Foxer, his service animal is no mere tool — it’s his friend; his comrade; even part of his family. It is not uncommon to bury a fallen fox and Foxer together. We call this powerful connection between the two “pair-bonding.”

Pair-bonding is simple in principle: young Foxers should spend as much time with their service fox as possible in all settings. The early years of a fox’s life are among its most impressionable, and building a good relationship with an animal starts from the moment you receive your fox. And keep in mind: a service fox is not a pet to be left at home; the animal is an extension of its Foxer, and the pair are assumed inseparable — legally, socially, and spiritually.

Pair-bonding also accomplishes the task of acclimatizing a working fox with the world at large. No kit is born with a tolerance for the whinnying of horses, the smell of roast meat, and the touch of strangers. Failure to expose a service fox to the barrage of sensory data that it will encounter in everyday life across Enclave or Purgatory could result in a disobedient, wily, or otherwise unpredictable animal — one that cannot serve the Church.

Training Foxes

Training a fox is an ongoing task for a Foxer. No fox is ever considered “fully trained” by the Church — even foxes that belong to Church officials. For a more exhaustive manual on training service foxes, see Foxing: Advanced Concepts, Riley Bangert. This manual will cover only the basics.

On the kit’s first day as a service fox, you must teach it its name. Remember, these are intelligent animals who do not see their “names” as pointless sound, but as vocal representations of themselves. Foxes also bond faster to the Foxer that assigns them their name.

Next, basic commands — the type one might teach to a dog — should be taught within the first crucial weeks of the kit’s life. These animals have been selectively bred to crave knowledge and command, and are most pliable in the first weeks of life.

The Foxer may note that their fox picks up its commands with unprecedented ease. Because of the intelligence of our foxes, teaching these commands is more of a formality used to establish obedience rules, rather than establish — in the case of common dogs, for example — the foundations of knowledge itself.

After the fox displays sufficient obedience within the first eight weeks, the fox needs to perfect its recall skills before it reaches three months. Service foxes are not leashed unless necessary, making recall a vital tool for the Foxer.

Desensitization to society’s many sounds, sights and smells during pair-bonding should have adequately prepared the service fox to ignore all stimuli and easily return to their Foxer. If you find your fox is still reactive towards certain stimuli and doesn’t obey when called, you may try additional or leashed exposure. Unless sufficiently desensitized and pair-bonded, recall will not be possible.

Once the Foxer establishes their place in the fox’s life — at the helm — most Den Masters recommend the Foxer develops their own way of communicating with the fox, something entirely unique to the pair. This unique brand of communication is particularly handy in a crowd of Foxers.

Speaking to Your Fox

A service fox cannot speak English, nor are they telepathic. Instead, foxes communicate to us through a pseudo-language; a language of looks, a language of body, and a language of voice. Learning to read — and speak — these languages is a vital part of a Foxer’s role.

Foxes are used in war and civilian life because they are innately sensitive creatures, creatures who speak with a language all their own. With a nervous whimper and a tuck of the tail, a fox may tell of us great danger — or opportunity ahead. With a stiff tail and growl, the fox alerts us to heretics or harvesters nearby. But one fox’s growl is another fox’s whimper—and although accepted behaviors categorize foxes, each fox communicates differently.

Study of a fox’s language begins during the pair-bonding stage of ownership. The Foxer should pay close attention to how a fox responds to the world around them — regardless of the driving emotion behind the expression. Soon after taking ownership, the Foxer should establish a language of their own with the animal. Many Foxers choose specific whistling patterns; others use finger snaps, or a small handbell.

Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits all guide to a fox’s lexicon. Each animal’s language is unique, and it’s up to the Foxer to translate that unique language for the rest of their charges.

Conditions of Revocation

Failed Foxers have the habit of treating their service fox like a pet, one to be left at home, or neglected. Other washouts use violence in place of discipline, reason, and consistency. These are some conditions in which a Foxer may have their certification revoked:

• Intentionally maiming, wounding, crippling, or murdering a service fox
• Abuse or neglect of a service fox
• Abandoning a service fox in the line of duty
• Breeding ‘talented’ service foxes without a license from the Church
• Using a service fox in conjunction with another crime
• Exchanging a service fox for goods or services
• Allowing non-licensed Foxers or civilians to take ownership of an actively serving fox
• Losing a service fox beyond the walls
• Stealing or fencing a service fox
• Blasphemy; speaking ill of the Church or God

If brought to conclave, a Foxer may be stripped of their service animal for some time, or they may have their certification revoked entirely. Take care, Foxer, that no foul deeds bear fruit by way of your fox, and God is with us.

Caring for Your Service Fox

A service fox is a remarkably self-sufficient creature, much to the chagrin of pad foots who leave food laying about. Foxers will notice that their animal has obvious needs — stimulation, attention, nourishment, and grooming — and when unmet, the fox will meet them on its own. Paying close attention to a foxes needs “leads to a happy Foxer indeed.”

Exercising Your Service Fox

Wild foxes are notoriously active creatures. While Church foxes have the benefit of centuries of selective breeding, they still retain some of their deepest animalistic urges. That urge is movement.

Start Early

Early socialization is key to a working animal’s success — and that socialization begins with exercise. Foxers should take their young service animals on leash everywhere they can; shops, Academy, Foxer’s Dens, museums, church, etc. Even on the most generous leash, at an ambling pace, a small trip on four small legs should be enough to exhaust a newborn kit. Plan to do this every day.

As the fox ages, it will build endurance for the long treks it will embark upon later in life. Soon, the fox can be let off leash for these routine walks (once the Foxer has perfected their animal’s recall), allowing the animal complete athletic freedom.

And there in lies the next task for a Foxer to master: a service fox’s capabilities.

Agility and Athletics

Church foxes, or — “Vulca” — in their tongue, are an enigma to human and Corvidae. One such heretic, captured by the Order of Easterling of Foxers, said this of our service foxes:

“Slippery like rainwater. Graceful like cats. Spirited like a wild hen. Loyal like dogs.”

The heretic’s description of a talented fox is textbook. A Church fox needs agility to scale buildings, limberness to slip under rubble, and the sense to avoid a lifter anomaly before their Foxer sets foot in one.

Foxes Love to Climb

Church-bred foxes are gifted climbers. From day one, newly birthed kits can stand, walk, and jump with adolescent grace. Foxers bringing home kits may notice the ease with which the small animal can scale furniture, like a kitchen table, a bed, or even a high-up shelf. Foxes love to climb, and catering to their desire to climb, scamper, or investigate is part of being in a working pair.

Foxers swear by “tree training” their kits. Foxers conduct this training outside, usually at a park or forested area. A lure (food or toy) is placed in a few of the surrounding trees, or impaled on high branches, far out of a crafty fox’s reach. Foxers then encourage the fox to use any creative method to reach the lure—usually involving climbing tree trunks, scaling boulders, and negotiating thin or thick branches.

At home, the Foxer can place the same lures high on shelves, or on pieces of furniture, to encourage development of the fox’s spatial awareness outside of Academy training drills and public areas. A service fox’s natural vertical inclinations often leads many city-dwelling Foxers to re-orient or change their living space to accommodate a vertical and horizontal environment for their animals. Some install shelves, some fill their space with live plants and humid air.

Feeding Your Fox

Fortunately — and unfortunately — service foxes are notorious for their ability to eat just about anything, including garbage. Though many Foxers feed their animals raw meat and vegetables, they can purchase fox pellets at most Dens and dry goods stores, too, which are far easier to carry during periods of extended travel. Fresh or boiled water remains the only other dietary requirement for a service fox’s happiness.

Grooming

If you’ve ever heard someone refer to a fox as an “advent,” you might have questions about the nickname. The name comes from the shedding patterns of a fox’s illustrious coat, which it sheds at the end of March, and regrows as the winter settles in. Many folks use the density of a fox’s fur to determine the day and approach of the season. No matter the variety of fox, it’s important to routinely brush and bathe a service fox during its shedding period. Aim to brush the animal at least once a day if possible, and bathe once every month or so. Re-bathe and brush as needed.

Concluding Remarks

It is often assumed that Church foxes are hard to care for — whether that’s inside the walls or outside the walls. Though this section of Foxing: A Standard Field Manual is extensive, it cannot do justice to the intelligence of these animals. With intelligence comes something not found in their wild counterparts: a sense of respect for the Foxer. These creatures are eager to learn, eager to earn praise, and eager to find a suitable owner that they trust and respect. Consistency, discipline, and affection will earn you into a fox’s good graces. Stay true to your course, stay true to God, and stay true to your fox.