History Literature / TheFoxAndTheHound

* HeroicRROD: Tod has a very difficult time escaping two greyhounds, and it's noted at the end of the chapter (nine) that Tod's stamina was never the same again because of it.

* PyrrhicVictory: [[spoiler:At the end of the story, the hunter has managed to kill Tod. However, he has to retire in a nursing home and shoot Copper to avoid abandoning the old dog.]]

A novel written by Daniel P. Mannix and published in 1967. It has a Creator/{{Disney}} [[Disney/TheFoxAndTheHound movie]] very loosely based on it, which is [[AdaptationDisplacement much better known than the book]].

* AnimalNemesis: Tod to the hunter.

%%* BearTrap
* {{The Berserker}}s: The catch dogs, who in their frenzy will more often go after the hounds than whatever quarry the Master is after. Tod's first mate is also driven temporarily insane by her pregnancy.

* BearTrap

* BizarreAlienSenses: From the reader's perspective, Tod and Copper's amazing senses of smell can come across as this. Copper's eyesight is so bad that he seems to consider clear colour vision to be a Bizarre Human Sense.

* CunningLikeAFox: Tod engages in a back and forth battle of wits with the hunter, who constantly uses new traps and new hunting methods to try and catch Tod.

* DogsAreDumb: Played with. ''Untrained curs'' are dumb - ''hounds'' can smell right through most fox tricks.

* GreenEyedMonster: Copper, an aging bloodhound-mix who'd fallen out of his master's favour, absolutely hates Chief, a younger dog who is challenging his role as head dog. He's overjoyed when Chief is [[spoiler: killed prematurely]]. As far as the foxes go, Tod's first mate is outright murderous when it comes to territorial boundaries and other vixens (TruthInTelevision).
* GroinAttack: What Chief uses to distract a bear about to kill his master. Foxes will go for the groin if it's available in both battle and hunting.

* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:''Both'' of the eponymous characters themselves. See DownerEnding.]]

* InfantImmortality: Averted. [[spoiler: A human child ends up eating the poison the hunter leaves out for foxes and dies, and ''almost none'' of Tod's pups that he sticks around to raise make it to adulthood. One lone pup possibly survived - at the very least, it drops out of the narrative without explicitly dying.]]

* ProperlyParanoid: Tod, on multiple occasions.

** His original mate picks a birthing den that's a single tunnel leading to a single burrow. Tod, having spent his short time as a wild pup in a generations-old fox den with multiple entrances and burrows, thinks it's a death trap. [[spoiler:He's right.]]

A novel written by Daniel P. Mannix and published in 1967. It has a Creator/{{Disney}} [[Disney/TheFoxAndTheHound movie]] very loosely based on it, which is much better known than the book.

The plot stars a human-raised red fox named Tod. After Tod causes the death of a hunter's prize hound, Chief, the [[AnimalNemesis hunter pursues Tod in a fit of vengeance]], aided by his ageing half-bloodhound Copper. Of ten chapters, Copper gets four as the viewpoint character and Tod six. The novel takes great pains to show both characters' distinctly non-human thought processes - in particular, scent rules their world far more than sight, especially in Copper's case.

%%* {{Determinator}}: The Hunter.

A novel written by Daniel P. Mannix and published in 1967. It had a Creator/{{Disney}} [[Disney/TheFoxAndTheHound movie]] very loosely based on it, which is much better known than the book.

A novel written by Daniel P. Mannix and published in 1967. It had a {{Disney}} [[Disney/TheFoxAndTheHound movie]] very loosely based on it, which is much better known than the book.

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler: Chief]] dies in the novel and the [[RecursiveAdaptation book of the film]], but not the {{Disney}} film that inspired the [[RecursiveAdaptation book of the film of the book]]. [[spoiler:There's also the matter of the two title characters surviving.]]

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: The novel's been out of print for decades.

* ScienceMarchesOn: Canines like dogs and foxes are not, as it turns out, completely colourblind, only red-green colourblind as compared to the average human.

* [[spoiler:TheHeroDies: ''Both'' of the eponymous characters themselves. See DownerEnding.]]

* [[spoiler:ShootTheDog: To avoid abandoning him in his old age.]]

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/foxnhound_2954.JPG

* {{Determinator}}: The Hunter.

* FragileSpeedster: Greyhounds.

* GreenEyedMonster: Copper, an aging bloodhound-mix who'd fallen out of his master's favour, absolutely hates Chief, a younger dog who is challenging his role as head dog. He's overjoyed when Chief is [[spoiler: killed prematurely]]. As far as the foxes go, Tod's first mate is outright murderous when it comes to territorial boundaries and other vixens.

The plot of ''Literature/TheFoxAndTheHound'' stars a human-raised red fox named Tod. After Tod causes the death of a hunter's prize hound, Chief, the [[AnimalNemesis hunter pursues Tod in a fit of vengeance]], aided by his aging half-bloodhound Copper. Of ten chapters, Copper gets four as the viewpoint character and Tod six. The novel takes great pains to show both characters' distinctly non-human thought processes - in particular, scent rules their world far more than sight, especially in Copper's case.

* PyrrhicVictory: [[spoiler:At the end of the story, the hunter has managed to kill Tod. However, he has to retire in a nursing home and shoot Copper to avoid abandoning the dog alone by itself.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Tod himself is finally killed]], and with most of his property gone and no more purpose in life, the hunter retires to a nursing home [[spoiler:that does not allow dogs, so he's forced to shoot Copper]].

* {{Jerkass}}: Both title characters. There's Tod, who hangs around by the hunter's dogs and taunts them while they're chained. When one finally gets loose and chases him, he [[spoiler: kills it]]. And Copper, whose jealously toward Chief makes him so hateful of the dog that he's ''happy'' when [[spoiler: Chief is killed by Tod]].

* ShownTheirWork: Mannix spent over a year studying foxes, which included watching them in the wild, interviewing hunters and even keeping a pair of red foxes in his home. He's also extremely well-versed in how scent tracking works. It shows.

* [[spoiler:TheHeroDies: ''Both'' of them. See DownerEnding.]]

* DownerEnding: Tod [[spoiler: is finally killed]], and with most of his property gone and no more purpose in life, the hunter retires to a nursing home [[spoiler:that does not allow dogs, so he's forced to shoot Copper]].

* {{The Berserker}}s: The catch dogs, who in their frenzy will more often go after the hounds than whatever quarry the Master is after. Tod's first mate is also driven temporarily insane by her pregnancy.
* BloodLust: The two viewpoint characters are carnivores. Do the math. While Copper is well-trained enough to not go after animals he isn't sicced on, that doesn't mean he isn't ''really tempted'' sometimes. Tod hunts for a living, and during a bad drought actually gets most of his water from the blood of his prey.
* BringMyBrownPants: Various terrified animals.
* ChekhovsSkill: Essentially how Tod and his kind's entire mindset works. His repertoire of hunting skills and evasive maneuvers are made up of various tricks that worked once and are repeated verbatim - he doesn't question ''why'' something works, he just knows that it ''does''.

* Mockumentary: Of the serious sort.

* ScienceMarchesOn: Canines like dogs and foxes are not, as it turns out, completely colourblind, only red-green colourblind as compared to the average human.\

* ScienceMarchesOn: Canines like dogs and foxes are not, as it turns out, completely colourblind, only red-green colourblind as compared to the average human.
* RecursiveAdaptation: The Disney books inspired by the movie, which was inspired by the original novel.