Couple Fed a Fox Trail Mix. Years Later, He Still Shows Up Every Night for Dinner (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Maureen and Jerry Castiglione recognized a fox making repeated visits to their new home after moving in

• Maureen started leaving food out for the fox

• Now, it’s a nightly routine for the couple, as Jerry says, “whatever we’re having for dinner, we save some for the fox”

In October 2023, Maureen Castiglione and her husband, Jerry, were settling into their new home in Lewiston, N.Y., when Maureen noticed an unexpected visitor wandering through their backyard — a fox.

Curious, Maureen, 75, began tossing trail mix out the window and talking to him. Before long, the fox started recognizing her voice and inching closer, until his visits became part of the couple’s daily routine.

“My wife loves animals and started leaving food out for him,” Jerry, 73, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “At first, I didn’t think it was a great idea to feed the wildlife, but she kept at it.”

Eventually, Jerry — a civil engineer — joined in too, saving his leftovers for the fox. Their daughter Marie, 38, even bought them a dog bowl on Etsy labeled The Fox.

Now, every evening around 7 or 8 p.m., the Castigliones set aside scraps from dinner and wait for their four-legged guest to appear. They’ve even developed a little ritual: a gentle tap on the glass window that signals to the fox it’s time to eat.

“Whatever we’re having for dinner, we save some for the fox,” Jerry says. “Dinners can range from fish, steak, chicken, burgers and hot dogs. We’re Italian, so on Sundays he gets meatballs. And if I’m leaving in a hurry, I’ll put out bread and peanut butter so he has a snack.”

The fox — who has been stopping by for over a year — has earned a name: Robin Hood. Lately, he hasn’t been coming alone.

“Dinner reservations went from a one-top to a three-top,” Jerry jokes, explaining that two more foxes now tag along, likely Robin Hood’s children or siblings.

For the couple, who raised five kids and are now empty nesters, the nightly visits have become a highlight of their day.

“It gives us something to do, and our grandkids love it,” Jerry says. “When I asked my wife what she enjoys most, she said, ‘His trust.’ She loves that the fox trusts her voice and has come every day for almost two years.”

Their daughter Marie, who lives in Buffalo, often shares snippets of family life on TikTok, where her followers have grown to love her dad’s gentle humor. One late night, she posted a simple video of Jerry feeding the fox — not expecting much.

“When I woke up the next morning, it already had about 200,000 views,” she tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I was shocked! My sister and I kept checking every hour, and it was just going up and up. I kept thinking, ‘My dad is gonna kill me!’ ”

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Since then, the video has amassed more than 770,000 views, with Marie’s follow-up clips of Jerry and Robin Hood pulling in thousands more. Fans quickly fell in love with the Castigliones’ backyard routine, leaving comments like, “Your dad is a real-life Disney princess” and “This fox eats better than me.”

“My dad was unbothered,” Marie says. “The next week, he hid from the cameras when I came over, trying to get more footage! He’s camera shy, so any video I post of him, he usually has no idea.”

“We lived in the same house for 45 years,” Jerry adds. “Two years ago, we moved just a mile down the road, on the river side of the street. It’s a whole new world here — we never had visitors like this at our old house. Funny what a mile can do!”

For Jerry, the viral attention is fun, but the real reward is simpler — and the family has no plans of stopping their nightly tradition anytime soon.

“When we have leftovers, I ask the waitress to box them up, and I always say, ‘Can we have these boxed up? I have a pet fox with a sophisticated palate,’ ” he says with a laugh. “It started with my wife putting out trail mix, and now it’s part of our family story.”

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