My morning life essence! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo........... zzzzzzz

I am not trying to say it needs to change or cause any drama, but can someone explain how "feral" came to mean non-anthro in this context? I am just curious and it causes me some confusion each time I see it since the word has a definition already. (Me to myself: "What? Foxes are not a feral animal.") Some "etymology" would be useful.

Also, a fox on caffeine could be a dangerous thing. They are already so jumpy.

Feral is state of mind. As you said it has often come to mean non-anthro, which comes to odds since 95%+ of non-anthro characters in the fandom are NOT feral. Even a cat using the litter box is a sign of domestication, and when was the last time you heard of a furry character tha-... nevermind, I am not going to touch that one.

Signs and feelings of love and intelligence both wipe feral from the description. I think most can understand the difference between the "non-anthro" tag and the "zoo" tag, but the "feral" tag is pretty off for me, and even used the way people to do describe physical characteristics leave it redundant to "non-anthro".

On the other hand, feral rolls off the tongue easier and avoids the "non" prefix (when was the last time you heard of the epic struggle between Good and Non-Good?).

I am curious why you say foxes are not feral though... Animals come in two categories I would say: feral or domestic. (With few slipper exceptions perhaps, like dolphins?) And domestic foxes are (sadly) very rare.

---TL;DR---
People should probably try sticking to the non-anthro tag and avoiding the feral tag in /most/ cases, but oh well, and people probably say "feral" because it sounds sexier than "non-anthro".

BTW, very cute foxie, hope he gets away with it.

Now he's gonna do like most pets and track it all over the couch and make the day much harder. XD

Twy: A feral animal is one that has escaped domestication such as the Australian feral cats.