If you’ve never heard the howl/cry/shout/wail of a red fox it’s surprisingly similar to the sound of a woman being stabbed in the night.  The first time I heard this I was terrified, but being lazy, just kind of assumed it was a dream or an animal.  After the atavistic rape din repeated itself a few times I tried to find out what it was.  I googled “animal that sounds like woman being stabbed” and rather quickly red fox came to the top.  Here’s a video:

Around this time, I found out that Max responses strongly to this noise.  Tonight, we were having trouble getting him to go out before going to bed so, on a hunch, I brought up the above video, played it and Max went tearing for the door to chase down the non-existent fox.  My father frowned at me until I pointed out the spot on the driveway where Max peed.