How to tame a fox in 'Minecraft' and get the game's cutest NPC to follow you

• You can tame a fox in "Minecraft" by breeding two wild foxes.
• The baby fox they spawn will automatically be tamed, but will follow its parents until you lead it away.
• To breed wild foxes in "Minecraft," you'll need to enclose them in a pen and then feed them sweet berries.

Foxes have been part of Minecraft since 2018, and it's one of the game's cutest "mobs" - the game's term for its NPCs.

Like most animal mobs, foxes can be tamed so they'll follow and obey you. However, unlike those other animals, you can't simply convince any random fox to like you. Instead, you'll need to breed a new fox into existence.

Here's how to tame foxes in "Minecraft," whether playing in Survival mode or Creative mode.

How to tame a fox in 'Minecraft'

To tame a fox, you'll need to make two wild foxes have a child. Here's how to do it.

Find and capture two foxes

First you'll need to find your wild foxes.

Foxes can be found in the taiga biome and taiga biome only, with the small caveat that they might wander to adjacent biomes. The taiga biome is characterized by its tall, green spruce trees. There's a few variations of the taiga biome, including snowy taigas that feature white foxes.

An untamed fox is a fickle, skittish creature. You'll want to search for them during the day, when most of them will be asleep.

The moment you see a curled up, conked-out fox, make sure you start crouching right away. You'll use the shift key to crouch on a computer, or your controller-specific crouch button if playing on a console.

Now, still crouching, build a pen around the fox to trap it. You can use any block to make your pen, but you'll want to make the walls tall - at least three blocks. This will make sure it can't escape. You can't stop crouching until the fox is cordoned in its pen. The moment you uncrouch, a fight-or-flight switch flips in the foxes and they'll run away.

If you see two foxes near each other, that's even better - trap them both in the same pen.

This is rare, though, so you'll probably need to find and trap the foxes separately. Once you've done this, you'll need to connect the two traps with a wall of blocks.

However, if the foxes you find are pretty far apart, and you don't want to take on a large construction gig, you can use a boat. Place a boat in front of a fox, and when it walks into it, it'll be trapped inside. You can then row the boat (even across land) to the other fox, and pen them both in.

Regardless which option you choose, you ultimately want to end up with a fairly tight enclosure to hold the two foxes.

Quick tip: If you're playing in Creative mode - or can change your gamemode to Creative - you can spawn an infinite amount of foxes at any time. Just find the Fox Spawn Egg item in your infinite inventory and use it on any free space. You'll still need to trap at least two of them, though.

Feed the foxes sweet berries

Whether you've spent the last hour wrangling foxes, or simply threw down a few Fox Spawn Eggs, you should now have two adult foxes penned in. If you caught a baby fox, wait for it to age up.

Get close to the two adult foxes, and equip a sweet berry. These come from the green-and-red bushes you occasionally see which slow and hurt you when you walk through them. They're fairly commonplace in the taiga, if you haven't gathered any already.

Feed berries to both foxes by using it on them. If you're struggling to get near enough to feed the foxes, make sure you're crouching.

Equip the sweet berries in your hotbar, and then approach the fox and use the berries on it to feed it a berry. If you're struggling to get near enough to feed the foxes, make sure you're crouching.

Upon feeding sweet berries to both foxes, they'll immediately breed a baby fox.

This baby fox is your golden egg: They'll be sweet and docile, unlike their parents, who will still go berserk when you release the crouch key. This is your tamed fox.

However, you're not done yet. Although the fox is docile, it's still not under your control.

Get the baby fox to stop following its parents

While the new baby fox might fall far from the tree in terms of attitude, if you leave it be, it'll always stay with its parents. This means that if they run from you, it'll run too.

You can fix this by attaching a lead to the baby fox, and walking it away from its parents. You can craft a lead by combining string and a slime ball, or randomly find one in a chest throughout the world.

Attach the lead by equipping it and using it on the baby fox. From there, you can gently lead him away to begin a new life with you. Once you're a few chunks away, it'll forget about its parents and stop following them.

Congratulations on earning your first tamed fox. And once you're there, rinse and repeat: By continuing the same breeding process, you'll soon have a whole brood of obedient fox friends.

To keep track of your new tame foxes, it's also a good idea to give the tame ones Name Tags. Learn the ins and outs of Minecraft's Name Tags in our handy guide.

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