I always wanted a fox! I can get the foxes who live in the fields behind my house to eat food from my hand, but every time I've tried to pet them, I get snarled at.

^ I have a similar experience with women.

Foxes have always struck me as being a kind of intermediary between cats and dogs and it makes me wonder why they aren't more popular as pets.

They do seem to be something of a hybrid. They -look- like dogs, but -act- like cats.

The primary reason you don't often see them as pets is simply that they're not domesticated...they don't really like or even tolerate people very well. Although that Russian breeding experiment could probably make a fair piece of change selling the ones they've been getting that -are- tame, I suspect they don't act much like your typical foxes anymore.