About the foxes

This is a photograph of my beloved Freddie the Fox, that I fed and looked after while still living in St. Mary's Island, in the UK. And I suppose if I would have never made contact with this gorgeous creature I would have never realised the price, foxes pay for an extremely beautiful and luxurious fur coat.

Having grown up, in USSR and then post USSR Lithuania, I have worn fur coats as a child myself. Not because our family was really rich and we didn't know what to do with our money, but because there was nothing else. There was no synthetic stuff that would keep you warm and even make you sweat during a cold -25 degrees Celsius winter.

We all had fur coats, because they were cheap and a necessity. Wool coats were a luxury when I grew up, and getting hold of one for a child was very rare. So I wore fur. You name it, I probably had it. Not that I remember very clearly all the fur coats I had throughout my childhood (as they would be passed on from older children to the younger ones), but because I know it. That's how it was.

Now that I am an adult, and I have formed my opinions and views and made friends with a slightly domesticated fox, I am against wearing fur and fox hunting. This is my personal view and I will tell you why.

I totally approve of killing the animal out of necessity, i.e. when I cow or a calf are slaughtered most of their body is used for food and other things. Are you aware most of the leather shoes are made out of cowhide?

I wear leather shoes and carry leather handbags, I am not a vegetarian, but I love nature. I don't think it makes me a hypocrite because as I mentioned earlier I believe in killing animal out of necessity, and if animal is killed for that reason I want to see most of it used rather than thrown away.

In France, you can buy (to eat) things like bull's heart, sheep's brain, cows stomach and the muscles around it, along with 100% of pigs body, if you ask any butcher they will tell you that ALL OF THE PIG can be used for food! So that is justified. Kill an animal and cook it, use the parts that you can't eat for other things (like previously mentioned cowhide for shoes, they also use goats skin for expensive shoes lining and gloves) there is nothing wrong with that.

What is wrong (and only in my eyes, as everyone should choose what is right and wrong for them) - killing an animal for pleasure. Long are gone the days, when the man had to go to the woods to hunt the dinner, that is no more required in most parts of the world, obviously with a few exceptions. I am all for keeping the traditions going, and the dressing up part for fox hunting is beautiful. It is an old British tradition, and they should find a way of keeping it, without the slaughtering part, anything is possible. Killing an animal for it's tail is cruel, because it is done for pleasure and luxury purposes, the rest of the animal is not used!

I love England and I love foxes and I find them extraordinary. Did you know that if a fox has fleas, it finds a peace of cotton bites into it and goes into the water backwards? That way slowly the fleas climb into the cotton, and when only the fox's nose is sticking out of the water it let's go of the cotton and comes out of the water absolutely flea-less... Now that is intelligent!

Did you know that fox is a mammal from the DOGS family? How would you feel if somebody chased your dog down the streets of your town or city, trying to catch for it's tail? Would you think it's a beautiful tradition?

The purpose of this post is not to protest, as fox hunting in Britain has been already banned, but to express my views. I will not approve of some celebrity wearing a fur coat because it's luxurious, because having an extremely high quality wool coat made that weighs nothing is just as luxurious and more animal friendly.

And as for those people who call foxes pests. Now foxes are intelligent creatures and when we start building houses, in the area where foxes live, of course they go through your rubbish and make a mess. But let me tell you this, I gave a chicken' carcass to Freddie many times enough, to see that when it eats it leaves nothing behind...

So please think before purchasing a beautiful and expensive (both money and life wise) fur coat or even just a collar, because you are paying for a beautiful mammal being killed, maybe you could do better. Maybe you could donate all that money to a charity, and provide home for homeless or food for the hungry. I know what I would choose. I still keep photos of my intelligent friend Freddie. And if you really can't live without fur, you can get rabbit fur that is cheaper and much more appropriate to use as the rabbits get killed for food anyway.

So here we go, you know now what I think of foxes, fur and hunting. I will not stand in the streets pouring buckets of paint on women who are wearing fur coats, because it is silly in my eyes. The animal has already been killed, the woman already purchased the coat. All I believe in, is that if I refuse to wear a fur coat few more foxes or other animals will live.

We are all born free, we make our own choices. With this post I don't want to impose my beliefs onto anyone else, I just want to make people think. And if one person will change their mind about purchasing a fur coat or collar, that will be a big difference in my eyes.