Hi guys.  I'm Jessi and we're back at Animal Wonders.  Today, we're going to be doing a hanging out session with Cas, our Arctic fox.  He's in there right now, so let's go say hi.

(Intro)

This is Serafina.  She's right here at our feet.  We're gonna go say hi to your friend.  I know, you can be in some of the shots, too, but today, it's all about Cas.  Yeah?  So we have our foxes in an indoor and an outdoor, I call this an outdoor enclosure, and Serafina the red fox is gonna be running all over the place the whole time.  I call this an outdoor enclosure because it's open to the elements.  We have a window and it's a dirt floored enclosure so they can dig and play but Cas has decided that he really likes this hammock and he's gonna go ahead and jump down 'cause it makes him a little bit nervous that I get too close to him.  He's like, what, what are you doing?  

Cas is probably our least tame animal, but he acts like he wants attention.  He likes to be kind of peripheral.  He wants to know what's going on and he will come up and be like, um, you're giving Serafina lots of pets right now, I kinda want that, but don't touch me.  So that's--that's kinda Cas's personality.  It's getting pretty dusty in here and what I would like to do is show you how we go on a walk with Cas.

Alright.  Ready for your harness, buddy?  Get one foot in.  This is a figure eight harness.  It slips over both legs and comes up behind his elbows and then I just have to work around his thick fur.  I don't want to clip any of the fur in the clip.  Here you go, buddy.  Alright.  There we go.  All done.  Let's go for a walk.

Alright.  Now that I'm all bundled up and I have a leash on him, let's head outside.  Oh, guys, it's really cold out here.  It is zero degrees Fahrenheit but the sun kinda helps.  Alright, buddy, let's go play in the snow.  

(musical montage)

I love that we're able to give him this experience.  You can see he's even open mouthing a little bit like, this is totally comfortable for him.  With the exercise, he might even start panting.  Arctic foxes are comfortable in 60 below Fahrenheit so 0 degrees is nothin' for him.

I love being able to just hang out with the animals and let them do what they want to do and I just kind of follow behind, literally.  He's just, just digging in the snow and then like, pushing it with his nose so it goes over his face.  I think he's just like, this is the stuff, guys.  As an animal behaviorist, it's important to remember that we can never know exactly what an animal is thinking.  We can't even know what their human is thinking.  Go buddy, go.  All we can do is watch their behavior and pretty much guess.

There is two layers of snow here.  There is the top powdery stuff that you can see him walking through and then there's an under layer that I keep breaking through in my heavy body, just breaks through, it makes it a little harder to walk, but he has a very light body.  He weighs about 10-15 lbs, depending on the season.  One thing about walking a fox on a harness is that if he really wanted to, he could wiggle out of that harness and be gone, so I have to be very focused and make sure that as he's walking around, I'm never pulling him in a direction that he doesn't want to go.  

Alright, guys, well, I'm going to stay out here with Cas a little bit longer.  He's having a lot of fun, but I'm gonna say goodbye to you.  Thank you so much for going on this adventure with us.  I hope you enjoyed seeing Cas go on a walk and I hope you guys have a great week.  Thanks, guys.

(Endscreen/Credits)