How Smart Are Foxes? Everything We Know About Their Intelligence

It’s no secret that there is a such thing as smart foxes. Foxes are quite crafty and cunning, especially when they have their mind set on something. Some people keep them as pets, assuming they can tolerate a fox’s destructive behavior and state law allows it.

Thomas Paine once said, “The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.” There are hundreds of similar quotes out there, all alluding to the wily nature of the fox. But is there any truth to the sayings of historically recognized figures? Are foxes as smart as most movies, books, and TV shows suggest?

In a direct comparison to dogs, most people wouldn’t think so. Foxes are difficult to train, easy to distract, and very skittish, even a tame one. However, there’s more to understand about the fox when not constricting it to a boxed-in comparison to another animal. They’re far more crafty than we give them credit for.

How Smart Are Foxes?

Out of nearly 40 known species of fox, there are only 12 that belong to the “vulpes” genus. They are considered to be very smart, often eclipsing dogs when placed on the same level (in other words, a trained fox versus a trained dog). As members of the canine family (yes, foxes are related to dogs), they descend the family tree in the opposite direction of dogs.

The general intelligence level of a fox outpaces that of a dog. While a dog may solve a problem using straightforward, blunt force, a fox may approach the same problem from a wide variety of angles. Their spatial reasoning, memory, and understanding of repeated gestures are well above average.

In the wild, foxes communicate in a variety of ways, with the human-like “yelp” being the most notorious. They also communicate with body language, facial expressions, and scents. Foxes tend to prefer a silent form of communication amongst each other. This explains their uncanny ability to quickly pick up on human hand gestures and motions.

Add to that the fact that foxes are primarily nocturnal and often communicate in the dark, and it’s hard not to be impressed. While foxes tend to outperform their canine family members, they also have some serious drawbacks.

Drawbacks of Fox’s Intelligence

A fox’s high level of intelligence is also a significant drawback. It makes them very difficult to train. Highly intelligent dog breeds also present issues for pet owners, especially those who don’t have the time each day to spend training their dogs. The reason is impatience and distraction.

Very smart animals need to exercise that intellect and if you don’t perform a training regimen up to their standards, it’s difficult to hold their attention long enough to teach a boring trick. Foxes are no exception. You constantly have to maintain their interest, or they’ll move on right in the middle of a training session.

It gives some people the impression that foxes are stupid. The same thing happens to those who have very intelligent dogs in their homes. They assume that all they heard about the thinking power of their chosen breed was just a farce. The reality is, that everything they heard is true, but it’s difficult to tap that potential.

Plus, foxes not only took a different path down the family tree from dogs, but they also evolved differently—in the wild, learning cunning, improvisation, reaction, and adaptation skills. Dogs, on the other hand, evolved within the home, learning human behaviors, gestures, tricks, and the day-to-day life of living in a home.

Smart Foxes Versus Smart Cats

Foxes are often thought of as a unique cross between cats and dogs. They aren’t, but the comparison still sticks, for a variety of reasons. Foxes have the smarts of dogs, utilizing it in inventive ways, while sharing the preternatural instincts of cats. They hunt, outsmart their prey, and develop unique approaches they tailor to the situation on the spot.

A fox and a cat on the hunt are very comparable, with the fox being a bit more lethal unless you include big cats, such as tigers, lions, cheetahs, and leopards. Foxes also have a solid sense of smell and extraordinary vision, with cat-like, slit pupils. Their vision allows them to pick up horizontal movements better, along with tracking smaller prey along the ground.

A Fox’s Memory

There’s a reason why a fox will go into a killing frenzy if it gets into a chicken coop. It kills far more than it could consume in a single sitting. Smart foxes know that even though they can’t eat all the chickens, they can return later and cache all the rest. Their memory serves them well in this regard.

Like a dog, a fox will cache its food supply by burying it, if it has a surplus. Whenever it gets hungry, or is otherwise thwarted by its prey for the evening, it will return to the cache and eat its fill. Of course, if they find food in your backyard, such as a chicken coop or a vegetable garden, they will invariably return to it if not dissuaded.

They’re also smart enough to remember people, specific people as well. If a particular fox has a bad run-in with a human, it will remain extremely skittish around all humans but will seek to avoid that specific human in particular. If a fox escapes a trap and is wounded, it is likely to avoid that area for the foreseeable future, unless its hunger drives it back.

Final Thoughts

Smart foxes are by no means anomalies. Regardless of the type of fox, they are all highly cunning. They are especially good at adapting to situations and changing tactics when needed. They aren’t up there with orcas, who seem to have nearly human intelligence at times, but they are quick learners and highly instinctual.

The average fox has a sharp sense of smell, even better vision, and extraordinary hearing. Their brains are capable of processing situations and even analyzing situations, at least to a degree. Though they belong to the same family as dogs, they are uniquely separate and highly intelligent to the point of being difficult to train.

While fiction may lend the fox a degree of nearly inhuman intellectual capabilities, the truth is grounded in the reality that foxes are indeed smart creatures. However, they aren’t likely to start solving Rubik’s Cubes anytime soon.