Why Don't We Have Pet Foxes?

Both foxes and dogs belong to the same family Canidae. Then why haven’t foxes become our companions too? To answer this, in 1950, a group of Russian scientists began an experiment to try and create the first ever pet fox species. The study led by Russian geneticist Dmitry K. Belyaev started out to understand how animals are domesticated. There is some evidence that early humans did try to tame the fox. But foxes are very shy and chaotic animals. In comparison, the wolf might have been easier to domesticate. This might be one reason that they weren’t domesticated. The Russian fox farm experiment showed that it is possible to tame the fox. They are now investigating which genes might make some animals like the dogs friendly towards humans but others like foxes aggressive.