the fox and the utility dog

Every morning at 8.30 I take the dog for a walk either through the nature reserve or over the fields behind it .Its really wet at the moment and the mud is thicker than a custard tart but the dog can run and he needs to or he's bouncing off the walls the rest of the day.Anyway Friday we were walking across the fields and suddenly basil starts doing his Pluto bit down on his front paws tail in the air wagging.Oh shit I thought another dog owner I haven't seen ,bas is quite big and a lot of owners take umbrage at him running up to play and act like hes a rottweiller.So I started to walk back to where he was only to find it wasn't a dog at all it was a largish Fox the fox is sniffing basil basil is sniffing the fox no fangs are bared and bas is still wagging his tail ,they stood nose to nose for about 30 seconds then I called basil thinking god he'll probably get mange now and Basil actually turned round and came back, we carried on walking and the fox watched us go for a while then turned round and went back under the tree from which it had appeared.All most strange