Francis Fennec

Francis Fennec is the six-year-old son of George and Danielle Fennec. As the only human in the Domain universe, he identifies things visually while everyone else does it by scent. He is also the half-brother of Fiona Fennec whose only contact has been babysitting him during a Christmas season which she mostly spent sleeping because of overstudying. The blond Francis was a mostly smiling and pantomime character prior to his growth spurt. He almost always wears a red shirt and gray pants.

Francis' birth was simultaneous to the announcement of Kevin Dewclaw's victory in the Domain school board election. He was named after Fran Caudal, Kevin's incumbent opponent who was the midwife while Danielle gave birth. His species was called into question upon his birth, for there was no certainty about whether he was a fennec fox (carnivore) or a rabbit (herbivore). He was originally covered with shaggy, light-brown fur and had the ears of a rabbit and the tail of a fox. With every mammalian species attempting to claim him as its own, he was declared "unclassifiable" by the Species Registry which was afraid of offending anyone.

Dorothy Squirrel and Elanor Dewclaw, the mothers of the comic strip's title characters, had a bet over whether Francis was a herbivore or a carnivore respectively before his teeth grew out. The result was a tie when Danielle informed them that Francis had omnivore teeth. She, George and Dorothy later discovered that his omnivore teeth was that of a primate's. Another primate trait exhibited by Francis was climbing which Danielle first witnessed when she saw him sleeping on the arm of his baby crib mobile. He also used his climbing ability to steal vegetables used as bait in predator residents' traps at the Fennec boarding house by grabbing drapes and swinging through transoms.

Francis transformed into a human at age one. The process began with the gradual shortening of his ears and tail and fur loss except for atop his head. The metamorphosis suddenly became complete at a supermarket while Danielle was doing toeplay with him while singing "This Little Piggy." The change resulted in most of Domain's population reacting with wonder, while a small number exhibited anti-human fear and loathing. The Species Registry declined to reclassify Francis as "human" because it considered him a singular aberration.

Francis participated in activities along with his cousin Coney Dewclaw and her friends, including Halloween trick-or-treating three times. The first was shortly after his transformation when he wore a bunny costume made by Dorothy while Coney and the other neighborhood children dressed as humans in a gesture of acceptance. Subsequently he wore a TARDIS costume created by his mother to keep him safe from potential predators and dressed as a cowboy (though his hat looked like a fedora in some panels) which came in handy when he used his lasso to keep Jess Jersey from stepping into the path of an oncoming automobile. His ability to find the most Easter eggs left his other cousin Rudy Dewclaw bewildered. Years later, Francis admitted to Coney that he knew all along that Rudy was the Easter Bunny but never divulged the secret for fear of not getting any candy.

And then, there's Camp Cartilage for predators which he began attending when he was age three. Coney had been protective of Francis since he was a newborn and after his transformation into a human because of his lack of natural defenses. It became apparent in his first trip to camp that his guile compensated for any perceived vulnerability. He succeeded in escaping and returning safely twice, but his adventurousness and penchant for swinging from ropes and vines amongst the trees the second time around nearly got Carl, a rhinoceros who was a counselor at the neighboring Camp Chewalottacud for herbivores and a Beige University Varsity Gardening teammate of Rudy, Fiona and Miranda Hutch, killed. After swinging on a vine out of predator camp, Francis eluded almost all of the counselors by shedding his clothes, including a t-shirt with a homing beacon sewn in. While straddling a railing of a wooden footbridge just outside herbivore camp, he was saved by Carl who intervened just in time to halt an oncoming raptor. After the impact of the aerial collision sent him face-first through the bridge and into the water, Carl was successfully given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by Leona Mangle and made a complete recovery. Francis was expelled from predator camp for his indiscretion, but was allowed to return a few years later.

Originally attending predator school, Francis is now homeschooled by his father George who resigned from his duties at Hare-Link because of his son's high unpredictability, especially his urge to swing from trees with a rope, vine or even a bedsheet. Upon his return to summer camp, Francis appeared dramatically different than he did just under two months earlier because of a growth spurt that was also experienced by his fellow attendee friends...except Coney. He independently spoke sentences containing more than two words for the first time ever. He also saved Jess, Wendell Luckyfoot and Tyler Meadowvole from a surprise attack out of the herbivore camp sewers by Spork Johnson, a leopard who was an at-large predator employed by Herd Thinners. Francis grabbed Spork's tail to allow his fellow campers to run for safety. When Spork turned and was about to pounce on Francis, Jess came to the rescue by running back at them and accidentally tripping forward on a rock with her horns piercing the rump of the predator who was eventually captured without any harm to the campers. 