In 2020, Key Largo nonprofit Pawsitive Beginnings was created to provide both a home to rescued foxes and education on the nature of the fur farming industry.
Pawsitive Beginnings has greatly expanded its sanctuary and its goals under the leadership of founder Nicole Navarro. Since last year, Navarro’s fox rescue has become more than just an animal sanctuary. With Pawsitive Beginning’s partnership with the Kinder in the Keys treatment center, Navarro’s foxes have become outlets for empathy, providing therapeutic help to women recovering from trauma and PTSD.
Navarro began volunteering at the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Animal Farm in Key West in 2017. In 2018, two foxes were surrendered from a private home to the facility.
“That was my first experience with foxes,” said Navarro, who had always had a love for animals. “I became infatuated with the species, and the thought of these animals still being legally farmed for their fur, for something as irrelevant as fashion, really got to me.”
After acquiring the necessary permits, she began a small nonprofit fox sanctuary two years later in Key Largo, providing housing for her first two foxes, Libby and Louie. Several weeks ago, she acquired her eighth, an 11-month-old kit named Ridley. Her sanctuary is much larger now, due to generous community donations.
“The goal of this sanctuary is to provide a forever home to foxes that get surrendered,” said Navarro. She also seeks to educate and to inspire legislation. “I think it would be amazing if Monroe County would be the first county in the entire state of Florida to ban the sale of fur,” she said. “It would make a bold statement if Monroe was the first county in the state to take a stand against animal exploitation, environment exploitation and human exploitation, all of which fur farming promotes.”
All of Navarro’s foxes have been acquired from fur farms. The foxes are legally surrendered to a rescue in Minnesota, and are often afflicted with injuries or disabilities that render them less profitable to the fur industry. Many common fur farming practices tend to mistreat the animals, keeping them in small, claustrophobic cages and rarely allowing them to touch solid ground. Ridley, her newest fox, is missing his tail.
“His mother, father, or both chewed off his tail,” said Navarro. She attributes this unusual behavior to the stressful and abusive environment that fur farm foxes grow up in.
Inspired by a friend, in 2022 Navarro reached out to the Kinder in the Keys trauma recovery center, which provides help to women who are recovering from intense trauma. Through their partnership, Navarro introduced the women of Kinder in the Keys to her foxes.
“Foxes aren’t therapy animals in the traditional sense,” said Navarro. “But because all of my foxes have survived trauma, the women can relate to them. These foxes, like (Kinder’s) clients, have come from trauma, abuse and neglect.”
Navarro, meeting once every few weeks with the women of Kinder in the Keys, has been able to educate her audience on each fox’s unique story of survival. “It’s not the foxes themselves that are therapeutic. It’s the foxes’ stories that have had a lot of impact on the patients who have met them,” said Navarro.
Navarro is proud of the direction her nonprofit is taking, and considers its impact one of the greatest accomplishments of her life. “After every visit, patients request and yearn for more animal/pet therapy,” said Kinder in the Keys. “Their demeanor, mood and behavior shifts to the positive and it brings light in their eyes as well. The context in which they begin to speak are healing words replacing the anger, fear and doubt they come in with.”
Upon hearing about Pawsitive Beginning’s partnership with Kinder in the Keys, the Florida Keys Children Shelter also reached out to Navarro.
“ I (feel) that just being around the foxes helps the children with connection without using words and it helps them decrease feelings of anxiety and stress,” said Francine Lemay, residential counselor at the Florida Keys Children Shelter. “Using the survival stories from the foxes and their behaviors (helps) the clients with their own feelings.”
Now, Navarro’s fox rescue is providing therapeutic help to multiple generations of people who have experienced tremendous difficulties in their lives. “In the past I myself have suffered trauma,” said Navarro. “Seeing my foxes recover from trauma has allowed me to realize that, if they can get over it, so can I.”
Navarro is affected by every fox that enters the sanctuary. She vividly remembers the first time that she witnessed a fox stepping foot on solid ground after years of torment in captivity.
“Once they set foot on solid ground and they instinctively feel safe, the healing starts,” said Navarro.
