Hey Tim, here's the story to go with the pictures of that recent dig with our dogs.

This story actually begins the day before. While walking my young female, Dixie, around the back-40 she caught a scent and worked it to a hole that looked like it might be in use. She wanted to go in and even though I knew better, I let her go in. My reasoning was that the house, tools and help weren't very far away in case that became important. Well, Dixie hadn't gone in far before she caught up with an occupant and there was a fair amount of growling and barking. During a brief silence I called to her and was very relieved when she came to me.

All that recall training was a good thing! She had a few small bites on her face and even I could smell the strong odor of fox. After a brief rest she wanted to get back in there but I took her home and called my friend Paul who was keen to bring his dogs, Lad and Lily but couldn't come until the next day. My brother also came along for the experience. We were soon glad for his help.

So, about 5pm we all arrived at the foxes den. When we put Lily in front of the den she went right in and quickly started to work the fox. The fox was in there again! This was her first time ever dealing with a fox! She fought it awhile before we could call her out and sent her in the other side where we thought the fox's bolt hole was. She got right in and was soon back to fighting with the fox! She seemed locked up with him and sounded to be struggling a bit but wasn't willing to come back out, so we sent Lad (the older male) in from the other side where Lily had started.

Lad quickly got a hold on the fox from that end and it began to sound like they were killing the fox.

We were trying to locate the best place to dig, a difficult task without tracking equipment. All we could do was listen carefully and make our best guess. (Look at all the holes in this photo. These guys worked hard!)

We dug 2 holes, 6~7-ft deep, without finding dogs or fox. Finally we reached a tunnel but they sounded farther away. We could occasionally hear Lad making a bit of noise and it seemed like he was trying to drag the fox out. Soon there is silence which forced us to make a guess on where to dig.

Finally we located Lad at the bottom of our 3rd 6~7-ft deep hole. He was pulled out, rewarded and put in the box. By this time we think the fox has been dead for an hour or more.

Now the sette was silent as the search began for Lily. We were all very worried she may have been killed or suffocated. (You just never know whats really going on in a hole.) Back where Lad was pulled we found lots of fox hair so we figured that might be close! In a quiet moment we could hear Lily whining very softly and we pin-pointed the area and dug yet another 6~7-ft deep hole [our 4th] until we hit a chamber. Paul used a stick to reach up into a side tunnel we'd found and the stick came back loaded with fox hair. He figured the fox was dead right there and blocking Lily in. We dug out the hole a little more and reached way up in there and grabbed the fox's tail and pulled out a very dead fox. Right behind the fox came Lily! She'd been in there over 5 hours and was mighty glad to see us!

Hell of a job by Lily on her first fox! We all learned a lot from this adventure. Some kind of tracking collar is on the shopping list now!

Great story guys! I think our readers will appreciate how much work is involved, especially if you don't have a modern way to find the dogs. You guys did it the hard way and stuck with it till the work was done. Not everyone has the starch for that.