BOWDOINHAM — Police are telling residents in Bowdoinham to be on the lookout after a woman and her dogs were attacked by a gray fox Tuesday night.

The sheriff’s department, along with Cliff Daigle, Bowdoinham’s animal control officer, were still at the Pond Road home when they got another call at 9:37 p.m. from a resident on nearby Route 138 in Bowdoin that had killed a fox after it chased and bit one of their dogs and tried to get inside the caller’s house.

While in two different towns, the homes are within about 500 yards of each other, Daigle estimated, so he believes it was the same fox. IN both cases the fox had porcupine quills. Daigle said the fox smelled of skunk, and was likely rabid. Healthy foxes don’t approach porcupines or skunks.

The animal was taken to the Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory and results are expected today.

Meanwhile, Herbert is undergoing rabies treatment at Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick, a series of shots that will cost approximately $10,000. Daigle said the dogs involved have been checked by veterinarians.

Ivy Driscoll said the family’s two dogs, Irie and Whiskey, were outside on the back porch, one of them on the do g run. Both dogs were looking down towards the stairs barking.

“I saw the fox — I didn’t know what it was, it looked like a dog to me — coming down the walkway getting ready to come up the stairs,” she said. “I panicked and started pulling on Whiskey’s run and yelling to Irie to come in.”

Holding the door open trying to get the dogs back inside, she got wrapped in the run and fell into the kitchen table to the floor. She was screaming, drawing her son, Nathan Driscoll, and his fiance, Herbert, from downstairs.

Herbert tried to get Whiskey away from the fox while Ivy said her son was able to get Irie in the house.

“That thing followed Jennifer back up the stairs, bit her in the rear and then proceeded to attack Whiskey again, and then bite Jennifer,” Ivy Driscoll said. “Her shoe was stuck in the door, and the (fox’s) head was in the door, trying to get in the house… I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

Driscoll said she recently purchased Whiskey in Jamaica, so he’s been in Maine for about a month. The dog just recently received a rabies shot so has to be quarantined at home for 4 months. Whiskey fought off the fox, saving Irie, a 9-year-old yellow lab, she said.

This story will be updated.