Fogle flings self at feral fox to save his pets
Ben Fogle recently leapt to the rescue of his elderly pet dog when it was set upon by a fox.
The television presenter had seen the feral animal in his neighbourhood for several days in a row, but his close encounter with it came when he was walking his black Labrador Inca, along with his other pet Maggi and his mother-in-law’s dog Beca – both Labradors – in central London near where he lives.
He had let the dogs off their leads to run free on some private land when the fox decided to take its chances.
The 37-year-old adventurer recounted to the Daily Telegraph:
“I heard lots of noise and commotion and then I saw Maggi and Beca.”
“They were running out of the bushes with what looked like a dog chasing them. It was a dog fox and Inca couldn’t get out of the way.”
“The fox started chasing her and I flung myself in between the two. I rugby tackled it and gave it a nudge, a hard nudge.”
“Inca was fine but I twisted my ankle a little bit – it is better now.”
Inca, who accompanied Fogle to Taransay off the Scottish coast for TV program Castaway in 2000, is now 11 years old and suffers from arthritis, and was unable to escape. However, Fogle said that the fox looked particularly malnourished despite being a large specimen.
He said:
“It was a very large dog fox – the size of my dogs. When I first saw it I actually thought it was a dog. It didn’t look in great shape.”
