Fox??

[dustawaits]

Just saw a small fox I think but never saw such a color.
Very light red brown with wide black “stripes “ on side and
its plumey tail. No white at all that I could see. Sizable black
patches around eyes.
No more than 12 inches tall. Was eating mulberries on the ground.

[Cabin Fever]

Could it have been a gray fox kit?

[dustawaits]

Thank you Cabin but no I do not think so. It looked nothing like this picture.

What caught my attention first was the condition..first time I have ever seen a fat fox if it truly is a fox.
It had the tiny legs but a very thick body. Sharper ears also.

[Ken]

Here he is!

[dustawaits]

No Ken,.that one is in my barn!

I am beginning to think this one is/was raised in a home, maybe a crossed one.
When it was aware it was being watched it could have turned and ran in the woods
which were 10 ft away. Or ran straight west to the road or turned east and ran into
the woods or behind the barn. Instead it turned toward the garden ,ran straight toward
the house , ran between the house and cellar and from there I do not know where it went.
I was standing at the door watching it so at one point it was less than 20 ft away.

[Woodpecker]

We don't normally have fox here dustawaits,, but for three years in a row, probably 20 years ago. I was alone with the kids and it was early morning. I heard what sounded exactly like "Mwaaa"

I thought one of the kids were calling me it was a very eerie sound that I'd never heard before. Days after I was planting flowers in my front yard, when I saw from the corner of my eye, a fox coming right towards me! I shooed it away, but they continued with their howls at night, whatever their call is named.

Being it was broad daylight when I saw the fox, I think it must have been sick, as they don't usually come out in daylight, I thought, like raccoons. The noise they make is a very weird sound!!!

[Bear Foot Farm]

It sounds like a Grey Fox to me.

It had the tiny legs but a very thick body. Sharper ears also.

It would help to know where you are.

[feather]

We keep this one in the house. It's not a grey/gray fox. It's called a cherry red fox, I hear.
It took me a long time to get used to it.

[Bear Foot Farm]

May 31, 2019 2:20:33 GMT feather said:

We keep this one in the house. It's not a grey/gray fox. It's called a cherry red fox, I hear.
It took me a long time to get used to it.

That's a Red Fox, which is a different species from the Gray Fox.

A Red Fox will always have a white tip on it's tail, even though they will sometimes have more gray coloration.  They are also larger, and the lower halves of their legs are black.

They aren't native to the US but were brought from Europe long ago and have spread, many time displacing the native Gray Fox, which is smaller.

There's another small native species in the Southwest called a Kit Fox that fits the description of "pointed ears".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_fox



One other possibility is a Swift Fox, which is very similar to the Kit Fox.
That's why location matters.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_fox
Note the black tip on the tail:

[dustawaits]

The one in my yard looked nothing like the cherry red or the swift or the gray.
The black markings are what set it off. Black circles around the eyes, wide black ...more
a stripe than patch and definitely not a saddle, and the same on the tail. No white on tail
or bib and shorter legs.

[Cabin Fever]

Badger?

[shellymay]

[dustawaits]

No Cabin , not a badger, and no shellymay, non of the above.
Have you ever seen the ones they sell for pets? They are white
with black stripes. That was the first thing I thought of seeing it.
Someone may have turned their pet lose or it got away and mated with the
wild ones.
They are not really good pets.

[shellymay]

dustawaits,  did you click on picture and scroll down, lots more...

[dustawaits]

shellymay,the 7th one down on the left is the black and
white one I mentioned.

[vickilynn]

My dad and brother went fox hunting a lot. They got a silver fox one time that had the mask like you wrote about. It’s my understanding that silver-colored foxes vary a lot in coloring and markings.