Fox and the hound, or Why I am an unfit pet owner, or Pastoral settings: Hidden danger, or Why I would be a really annoying headline writer

My married-with-three-babies older sister and her family are away for the weekend and I have the pleasure of looking after her dog.

Her dog is tiny -- about the same size as a skinny 5-year-old cat -- and fierce. She terrorizes my other sisters' dogs and once had them sitting back-to-back to fend off her attacks. She will bite one and race away to bite the other in a vicious continuing cycle. One of these dogs is just a little bigger than her, the other is more than twice her size.

I love how wild she is.

Today I took her for a walk in the countryside, on a road with a field on one side and train tracks on the other. She was being good, so I let her off her leash. For a while everything ws fine.

Then she disappeared.

The grass it the ditch was taller than her and I couldn't find her. I kept calling and calling, but she wouldn't come. I walked to where I had last seen her, trying to find her. Then, maybe 10 feet away, I saw a creature about her size -- but it definatley wasn't her. It was the cutest baby fox ever. And even though he was tiny, he was still significantly bigger than her.

I started to panic. What if he had killed her???

A few seconds later, she trotted out of the grass near the fox, looking very satisfied with herself. It's difficult to guess which one would have won in a battle between the two, but my money's on this ferocious beast.