Ethology

Ethology is the study of behaviors, normally animals, in their natural environments. This would include the study of emotions and intelligence observed in the animals.  This can be difficult to deduce, as we cannot ask most animals what is going on in their heads and get a response, so we have to do our best to observe and stay as unbiased as possible.

With emotions, there is a division between primary and secondary emotions.  Primary ones would be emotions that don't require thought to ascertain.  They would include fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust, excitement, and anger.  These primary feeling are what all other feelings come from.  Secondary emotions are ones that require reflection or thought to understand, and can include love, embarrassment, guild, jealousy and more.  Secondary emotions are believed to require memory, and generally lead to better decision making abilities in the future.

Foxes, like most mammals, have primary emotions that are easy to see.  Like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO_KOB-gUps

Most of us have hear the phrase clever as a fox, and it has been seen that they have an innate knack for solving problems, such as this clever hunting adaptation:
http://www.livescience.com/12436-wily-fox-clever-hunting-tricks.html   

Intelligence is a vague thing to talk about, as there are different types of intelligence.  The red fox is adaptable, as seen in it residing in a multitude of different habitats and clever by being able to break in to cages to receive prizes.  Recently, with the domestication, they have been able  to read cues better from humans.  Before only dogs were known to be able to understand when a human was pointing that they should follow the finger, but the domesticated fox is able to comprehend the concept as well.  So in certain instances Vulpes vulpes is quite an intelligent animal.

By: Kieran Meehan

Sources:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethology
http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/primary_secondary.htm
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/f/fox_hunting.asp