Pet Fox Escape and Recapture

Bill Vokac gently cradles an 11-week-old Kit on the drive home from the breeder. photo by Michelle Vokac

Fox on the Run

by Amy Barnes

It started with a book report. book.

Well, to be more exact, it started with a boy trying to cut corners on the assignment of a weekly book report.

When William (Bill) Vokac was in fifth grade, he loved foxes and dreamed of having one as a pet.

It so happened that when his teacher required the students write a weekly book report, Vokac decided to write his book reports on books about foxes.

“We used to have to do a book report every single week, and I did a different fox each week,” said Vokac.

Michelle Vokac anticipates Kit’s next move as the sun goes down and Kit becomes more active. photo by MaryBeth Milchak

He figured that by choosing only books about foxes that he could write the book report once and then add a new paragraph or two for the ones to follow because the information would be similar in each book.

It turned out that he ended up having to write a completely different book report each week because the information about each fox breed was so different.

He ended up learning a lot about foxes and wanting one as a pet even more.

That was 25 years ago.

It was not until this year that his dream came true. His wife, Michelle, gave him a belated Father’s Day gift of a fox pup. They named her Kit.

While the ideal is to get a fox when it is 5 to 6 weeks old, it turned out that Kit was at a breeder’s in Toledo who had sold all of his fox pups, but some of the buyers never picked up their foxes. While it meant the Vokacs could get a fox, it also meant that Kit already was 11 weeks old when she joined their household.

Almost immediately, Bill started building an outdoor enclosure for Kit so she would be able to spend time outdoors, as well as indoors, and have more room to play.

As Bill finetuned the pen, Kit was enjoying exploring and playing in it. He called for Michelle to come inspect the enclosure to spot any possible escape routes.

Unfortunately, what happened next was a cascade of things-that-can-go-wrong.

When Bill called out to her, Michelle was busy making a wet food blend to feed to a special-needs chicken they had adopted. The chicken had a crossed beak and could not eat regular chicken feed.

Michelle gave Bill the special food blend and he went to give the chicken, Bobby, his feeding bowl, but when he entered the chicken pen, he saw blood everywhere and found that the other chickens had attacked Bobby.

He yelled for Michelle to come help.

Michelle rushed Bobby into the house to start doctoring his wounds.

During all of the confusion, while Bill and Michelle were distracted with saving Bobby, Kit escaped her pen.

Kit had been with them only six days.

The Vokacs’ home on Ryan Road is surrounded by open fields and woods and widely spaced houses. Across the street from them is 100 acres of grass and woods.

One of the traps that was set in the woods to try to catch Kit. photo by Michelle Vokac

Adding to their fears was the fact that two days after Kit went missing, several of their chickens had been torn apart, two even had heads missing. It was not something that Kit was capable of doing at her size and age, but whatever did it was out there with Kit.

Read what happened next in the October 2021 issue of Joy of Medina County Magazine.