When it comes to the animals in our lives, I think all of us are pretty much softies.
After all, how can you look into a pair of sweet puppy dog eyes and not feel your heart melt?
As it turns out, that particular gift for saying "I love you" may not even be specific to canines of the domestic variety.
A young couple who recently adopted an abandoned fox cub have the photos to prove that even Fido’s wilder cousins have totally mastered the knack of the big-eyed plea.
We have to confess, as much as we love our own darling dogs, we haven’t seen many things cuter than this teeny-tiny baby giving her best “am I not stinkin’ adorable?” face.
Her name is Kona and, though she might be a grown-up fox right now, she’s still cute as a button!
From itty-bitty baby to proud and mischievous adult fox, her story is pretty incredible from start to finish.
Scroll through the gallery below to see little baby Kona grow up!
For tiny baby Kona, life got off to a bit of a rocky start.
At less than a week old, she and her four siblings were rescued and taken to an animal shelter that helps wild creatures that might die without intervention.
One of the workers at the shelter took Kona home, and she and her husband began fostering the little cub.
They weren't entirely sure what kind of fox they had on their hands, though as she grew, they began to suspect that she was actually a red fox with unusual black and gray coloring.
When little Kona first came into their lives, she was just a tiny scrap of black fluff, not even able to open her eyes yet.
That meant that she required a lot of hands-on care at all hours of the day and night.
As it turns out, hand-rearing an infant fox is nearly as labor-intensive as having a human newborn, although foxes do grow up quite a bit faster.
When Kona was little, she needed to be fed every two hours, day and night, and she needed her humans to encourage her to go to the bathroom by wiping her with a damp cloth.
Adorably, she also needed plenty of snuggle time, because she was so little when she arrived that she still needed body heat to survive.
She spent a lot of her time being carefully cared for by her foster people, who lovingly dealt with every unexpected part of fox parenthood that came their way.
When Kona struggled with housebreaking and ended up covered in poop, her caretakers did just what human parents would do in a similar situation and cleaned her up in her very first bath.
They also spent plenty of time snuggling her to keep her warm; all that cuddling made her very close to her adopted family!
As she got older, Kona started to develop silvery fur around her face, which would gradually become a glamorous salt-and-pepper coat.
She also became more and more a part of the household, especially as she became more independent and grown-up.
Because she was fostered in a state where she would have been put down as a pup, her foster parents can't release her into the wild, but she's a happy and beloved member of their family.
A wild fox can never be truly domesticated like a dog is; that's a process that takes generations.
Kona still manages to come pretty close; she knows that she belongs with her people and that she's the queen of her household.
She struggles a bit with learning housebreaking rules, like "don't climb on the furniture." However, as she's gotten bigger, her family has expanded her territory to accommodate the unique needs of a fox living with people.
Now that she's fully grown, she still gets plenty of snuggle time with her favorite people, but she also has plenty of her own space.
She has a big fenced-in enclosure in the backyard, not unlike a dog run, which gives her a lot of room to burn off energy and play with her favorite toys.
But even though Kona has all of the room she needs to get into fox shenanigans, she still knows that she belongs with her people, and they belong with her!
If you're totally taken with sweet Kona and her adorable foster family, make sure to SHARE their story with friends and fellow animal-lovers!
