There was a recent panic chez Patterson when our beloved dog, Toby, went missing on his way back from a walk.

He finally turned up with a satisfied swagger and a strong aroma of Chinese takeaway lingering on his breath. No further investigation required, Milord. The guilty party is on remand for (relatively) good behaviour – for the moment.

But I know for a fact that greedy black Labradors aren’t the only animals scavenging the streets of Woodstock – or Oxford and other towns in the county for that matter.

The urban, or suburban (I think it’s the postcode that differentiates the two), fox is becoming a big problem in town and city gardens, especially for people who own chickens, which more and more of us do.

They might look cute, and fox cubs playing on the lawn early in the morning is a charming sight, but they can cause a lot of damage.

A few years ago we lost all our pet hens to a fox, leaving me with a strong loathing for their strong musky smell. (If you’re curious, check out the wolf cage at Burford Wildlife Park).

If a vixen is a nearby resident in winter, you’ll certainly know about it – her blood-curdling scream at night is quite terrifying.

At the sound, Toby, far from standing firm to protect his indulgent owner from an unwelcome visitor, becomes a quivering wreck with fright … but he is a bit of a wimp.

When I was young(er) the sight of a fox in a town or city was virtually unheard of. Since then there has been a dramatic shift in the number of foxes deciding to up sticks and opt for a life of comfort in city-streets.

Apart from their penchant for a slap-up chicken supper, the nuisance foxes cause in a garden is not so much to plants but to lawns, which they dig up in search of grubs.

A favourite place for a den is the back of a garden shed.

A des res that is not always acceptable to the owner.

When we were landscaping a garden with a resident fox, we filled up the tunnel with earth and spread some evil smelling castor oil all around the area in the hope of deterring our foe. In just a single night the soil was removed and the smell of castor oil replaced with that familiar musky odour.

The truth is that if Mr & Mrs Fox and family have decided to make your garden their dream home, there’s very little you can do to persuade them to move out.

It’s no good calling the council, ASBOs for these nuisance neighbours are somewhat ineffective. The council has no statutory powers or legal rights to eradicate foxes on private or other land; they are classed as wild animals, not pests.

The best thing we can do to keep them out of our gardens is to not feed them.

Whilst we can admire their beauty in the wild, if you aren’t keen to have them as lodgers in your garden, my advice is: don’t offer them your leftover BLT sandwich and keep your wheelie bin tightly closed.