Fennec a.k.a. the desert fox a.k.a Vulpes Zerda is a very small fox with a grotesquely large ears. In their natural habitat in Tunis and Algeria fennecs are hunting for large insects and small lizards through the night and spending their days sleeping in the burrows or other natural shelters. Such kind of living made fennecs awesomely big eared and unbearably cute.

10 interesting facts about fennecs

1. Fennec is the smallest specie of canidae family on our planet.
2. The word “Fennec” means fox in Arabic.
3. Fennecs’ hearing is so sharp they could hear a prey moving underground 30 meters away.
4. Fennecs’ ears are so large not only to help them hear better but mostly for the better dissipation of body heat in the harsh conditions of the North African desert.
5. Some African tribes prize fennec’s fur more than gold.
6. The soles of fennec’s feet are furry to help them walk on the hot sand.
7. Though fennecs’ have never been domesticated they are considered exotic pets.
8. Visiting the dedicated Fennec Zoo in Tunis will cost you 10 Tunisian Dinars which is about $7.
9. Hunting for small birds fennecs can jump upto almost one meter high.
10. Fennecs’ families are lasting live long (up to 10 years). When the fennec female is caring about their pups, fennec male is protecting them and providing them with food.

Foxes domesticated in the first generation are not the rare. From time to time somebody finds the abandoned fox puppies and brings them home, feeds them, cares about them. Fox puppies grow and becoming faithful friends to their savior. Since foxes are closely related to wolves and dogs they are sharing most of the habits and behavior.

However, there are some differences. Domesticated pups of the wild parents are friendly but still pretty wild animals with the strong wild foxes’ habits. They really love to dig and could dig quite a deep pit in the middle of your flowerbed or even in the middle of your favorite sofa.

Wild foxes have a very strong odor. It’s not so noticeable when the animal is living outdoors but living indoors even a small fox pup could turn a pretty big house into a barn. The fox’s pee is especially smelly since the wild foxes tend to mark their territory.

In the middle of the 20th century Russian scientist Dmitry Belyaev who was working for the Soviet Institute of Cytology and Genetics started his first experiments to breed deeply domesticated foxes. That times his goal was not much humanitarian. He was trying to breed the Siberian foxes that would be calm and easy to care in the fur farms.

Half a century later due to pressure from the ecology organisations and animal rights activists the idea of exporting fur without killing the animal who wear it surfaced. Now there is at least one company exporting domesticated by Belyaev and his progeny Siberian foxes exists. The price of the domesticated Siberian fox pup is as high as $6000 (including a careful and fast shipping from Siberia) but the Russians promise that their breed of Siberian foxes are deeply domesticated which means that such foxes are not much smelly than the average dog, very friendly to people and gave up almost all their bad wild habits.

It’s logical that the pet foxes are becoming more similar to dogs on the way to domestication. They are tend to bark almost like the dogs of comparable size. They wag their tales when happy. Their color schemes are more diverse since the color of the fur doesn’t play such an important role when the animal is living indoors and eats from the bowl on the kitchen.