>>>We get lots of them around here in Toronto. Once I put cat food out on a tin plate for them at the back of my back yard hoping it would keep them from coming out front. That evening I looked out and there was a raccoon reclining beside the plate, propped up on one 'elbow', and reaching in with the other paw for food. I wish I'd had a camera. It was like watching someone lying on a couch eating from a box of chocolates.
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>>lol - I can just see the Disney cartoon!
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>>A few weeks ago, while putting out the bin bag, I encountered a fox in our enclosed, narrow street. At first I thought it was a large ginger cat, just the oither side of a car. It was within yards of me. I ran back inside to get some ham for it (this took a few minutes). When I got back I followed it up the street and left a trail for it. It sniffed at the ham but didn't eat it - but DID follow me back to my house. I then ran back in to fetch my camera (another min or 2). It was still there! I stalked it around the parked cars, for about 10 minutes, flash photographing it (with red-eye multi-flash), within yards. It didn't turn a hair!
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>>Sub-urban foxes round here feel kinda safe
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>I've heard there are foxes around, but I've never seen one here. We get lots of raccoons and a few skunks, but that's about it. The squirrels, of course, are just part of the scenery. What's fun is watching a cat trying to catch a squirrel. When the squirrel runs halfway up the backyard fence and then runs along the length of it sideways, the cats always just stop, scratch their heads and walk away defeated. Same thing when the squirrel runs up the brick on the house. You can almost hear the cats saying, 'Jeeeeezzzz'.

I like it when a dog tries to get at a squirrel on a tree trunk. As he runs around the tree the squirrel just jerkily keeps placing itself on the opposite side of the trunk - doesn't even get into 3rd gear! I like the black squirrels you have over there. We don't have them here (the GREY sq's shouldn't even BE here - they were a mistaken import, which, all but for a few isolated pockets, and the Isle of Wight, have caused the extinction of the native red).

You may not see foxes over there but I've seen a wolf, in broad daylight, in the Ontrario rural sub-urbs! We don't have moose or beaver, either, as you have in Algonquin, nor (despite the Disney idyll, in "1001 Dalmatians") raccoon or skunk.