Screaming fox won't leave me alone

[DonyaQuick]

There is a fox in the area that I have been having trouble with for the last 3 months or so, and it's gotten worse recently. I know from snow and mud in winter/spring that it never came near the house or coop then, so it has only started coming nearby since then. The last few weeks, it seems to have less interest in my coop than my house, which I do not understand. It comes every 1-2 nights, often right up to the wall below the bedroom window and starts screaming...and screaming, and screaming, and screaming. It keeps screaming at the house a couple times per minute until I get up, put shoes on, and charge out after it with the dog on a leash - she is a nearly 1-year-old great pyrenes. My dog gets angry when she smells fox and is excellent at tracking, so I have tried to give it a scare by having it go right up the trail it leaves as fast as I can go to the edge of the property (which is a good distance) and then marking places along he way back since if often follows the same path once it's up in the forest. It doesn't seem to be making a difference though and it seems like there is now competitive marking going on between them. I haven't kept a log of it but it honestly is starting to feel like the more I go after it with my dog the more it's showing up even though it clearly runs away from her. My dog just had her first season. Is it possible that she's actually attracting it?

If my dog is attracting rather than repelling this fox, is there anything else I can put down to repel it? Even though the chickens should be safe from it at night and I have not lost any chickens to predators, having such a bold one get going is surely not a grand situation and not something I can just let be even if I ignore the sleep deprivation it's causing me. Shooting it would be pretty hard unfortunately, since I can't stick a gun out the windows on the back of the house easily (not quickly anyway) and the front door is on the other side of the house, which gives it plenty of time to get distance in before I get around. It comes at completely random times between dusk and dawn so I can't even camp and wait for it unless I want to pull all-nighters waiting for it. I would try to trap it, but there is also a skunk that lives nearby and goes similar places. The last thing I want is to find angry pepe le pew in a cage. As far as I know, anything that would attract a fox into a trap would also risk bringing in the skunk. I'm running out of ideas.

 

[nuthatched]

Have you called wildlife services? Maybe try putting the trap on something since foxes can jump better than skunks.

 

[SourRoses]

Is there any recess under your house where another fox might have gotten trapped or strangely comes to meet it or something? Lol
Have you looked around the ground for any signs of a burrow? Could there have been a previous burrow where this fox was born?
Why is the fox doing this? We must know!

 

[Shadrach]

It's probably a Vixen calling for a mate. It should stop when she goes off season.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Have you called wildlife services? Maybe try putting the trap on something since foxes can jump better than skunks.

There's not much in the way of wildlife services out where I am, at least as far as I know. Since this fox isn't causing a hazard and probably not rabid I doubt anyone would do anything. I'm in the middle of farms where people mostly have to handle problem critters themselves in some way. If I can't find another solution I will see if there's a way to elevate a trap.

Is there any recess under your house where another fox might have gotten trapped or strangely comes to meet it or something? Lol
Have you looked around the ground for any signs of a burrow? Could there have been a previous burrow where this fox was born?
Why is the fox doing this? We must know!

My house is one of those that had a porch at some point that became part of the house as an indoor space, so there is a weird crawlspace, but it's on the front part of the building where the fox doesn't go. It's screaming outside a cement wall. Also, if its mate or offspring was under the front part, I'm pretty sure my dog would have pulled the siding off to get under there after it. She has some sort of instinctual hatred of foxes.

There is a fox burrow I know of, but it's a ways out. It's down a nasty steep slope and I stumbled on it when I was looking for an escaped chicken last year. At the bottom of the slope is a stream and just on the other side of that there is a house being rebuilt. I guess it's possible the disturbance has driven it to relocate, but the construction has been going on a lot longer than it has been screaming at me so directly.

This got me thinking though. I have been focused on where the fox actively is or has been. What about where it ISN'T? Then I realized something interesting: it actually does not go right up to the coop at night (after it's light out is another matter...but it doesn't scream at me during the day). It will go close to the coop, but never ever gets close enough to set off the security lights I have installed around it. The paths it follows stay just outside the sensors' ranges. I don't think that can be a coincidence. So...this afternoon I went out and got a more powerful motion-triggered light that I'm charging in the sun right now. Going to plonk on the ground under my window tonight. Time to see how it likes being blinded next time it comes running in to shriek at me. I will be thankful if I can just have an automated way to make it leave so I can just go back sleep instead of going for a run.

It's probably a Vixen calling for a mate. It should stop when she goes off season.

Don't they do that in winter though? I heard screamy fox antics in the forest in January which I assumed was down to that. I do think this particular problem fox is female; when it has marked places it's on the ground like a female dog does. If it was male I assume it would mark on the side of trees and such like dogs do. My dog is also female too though, so I don't know why it would be looking for a mate in the middle of August at my house.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Three nights in a row with no screaming outside my window since putting that light up. I didn't realize at the time, but it has a blinking red light to look like a security cam. Not sure if that is actually the main thing having an effect now. Anyway, I don't think it's a coincidence - first time in weeks that I've had this many quiet nights in a row.

 

[Geena]

Don't they do that in winter though? I heard screamy fox antics in the forest in January which I assumed was down to that.

They do around here, the normal breeding season being Jan - Feb for spring kits. I have had those random ones that scream in the middle of the night through the summer, too. It's enough to drive you crazy, especially if you have dogs, because then they wake up and start barking as well.

 

[high5]

It's probably a Vixen calling for a mate. It should stop when she goes off season.

You're right about it beng a vixen as it's those who scream.

 

[high5]

My dog just had her first season. Is it possible that she's actually attracting it?

I can't see that your dog is attracting the Fox. The fox is most likely a female, anyway.

I have had pyreneans in the past and there are many accounts of them killing wolves, that's why they were used for protecting sheep flocks... foxes aren't stupid enough to want to attract them.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Last night I heard screamy the fox again...in the distance at a neighbor's house! From the barking and howling that ensued and also traveled, it sounds like those folks may have been bolder than me and just released their dogs to run free after it. There's got to be something wrong with this fox for it to be going to houses that smell of dog when there's a big expanse of un-populated forest where it could surely be doing better. I hope it's not that someone in the area is feeding it or something similar, but now I have to wonder.