Suzanne Harrington: Out-foxed by a sly thief who stole my leopard print slider

She fed it, gave it shelter, and treated its mange... but Suzanne Harrington is now a precious shoe down after adopting a fox

'The fox I feed every night doesn’t have mange because I sprinkle anti-mange medicine in its dinner.' File picture

On a tiny island off Warrnambool in Australia, the world’s smallest penguins come to breed. They weigh just 1kg.

The island favoured by the tiny penguin colony is cut off from the mainland by the tides, apart from a few hours a day when a tidal sand bar makes it accessible.

The foxes of mainland Warrnambool, without a map or a smartphone between them, figured this out, and timed their visits to the island to coincide with the tides. Crossing the sand bar, they decimated the tiny penguin population until there were just ten anxious individuals left.

In response, a local farmer, named Swampy Marsh — I swear I am not making any of this up — suggested he could protect them using the dogs he’d trained to guard his free range chickens.

Two Maremmas — a giant white fluffy breed, like golden retrievers bred with donkeys — went to live on the island as guardians, and the penguins repopulated their colony and lived happily ever after.

I think of these dogs as the young fox who lives underneath my garden cabin calmly approaches its open door, stares at me sitting at my desk inside with its exquisite gold eyes, holding eye contact like we were on a date, then picks up my shoe from the threshold, and saunters off. Casual as a seasoned shoplifter. Into the hedge with my slider in its mouth.

The hedge, thanks to decades of neglect, is thicker, fiercer, and taller than the one guarding Sleeping Beauty’s castle. It harbours all manner of wildlife — a badger, a hedgehog (whom we haven’t seen for a while, Google tells me hedgehogs are a badger’s favourite snack), its upper branches fluttering with tiny, tweety birds, hurrying squirrels, and the occasional skulking cat. The kind of hedge which offers excellent cover for a fox with a slider in its mouth.

And not just any old slider. Not some five quid fake from a giant Bangkok shopping mall, of which I have dozens. No, the fox has carried off a beloved vintage leopard print Adidas slider, one half of my favourite pair, and irreplaceable. 

I stare at its receding tail disappearing, Cheshire Cat-like, into the dense greenery. Mouth slightly hanging open — mine, not the fox’s — at its staggering nonchalance.

My adult children, seeing me on all fours trying to crawl into the hedge — which runs all the way around the garden and provides a kind of Viet Cong escape network for foxes absconding with sliders — are of little help. They are too busy laughing as I get snagged on brambles.

At the far end of the garden, the fox calmly pokes its head out, gives me its magnificent golden-eyed stare, and vanishes again. Nothing in its mouth. I assault the hedge, cursing, but it yields only traffic dust and thorns.

This is the fox I feed every night. The one who doesn’t have mange because I put anti-mange medicine in its dinner. The one who lives rent-free under my cabin, whose late-night romancing often wakes me up, thinking someone is being murdered nearby. What could it possibly want with a leopard print slider?

I put out extra food that night in the hope of creating goodwill. Maybe it will return the slider, like teen ruffians during a knife amnesty. It doesn’t. It just eats all the food.

My children are no help. Call the cops, says one. No, says the other, struggling to keep a straight face. Get some giant Aussie dogs to guard your shoes. Ha fucking ha, I say, still picking leaves out of my hair.