I can tell you that if you bathe a flea infested cat, all the fleas absolutely will run to its head to avoid the water. I learned to soap up a ring around their necks before soaking the rest of of them. So I think the trick could feasibly work, but that doesn’t address whether foxes actually know how to take advantage of it.
I’ve noticed this bathing dogs before, but I thought they ran up to escape the soap, because water alone does nothing to them. ?
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You can find this story, together with several others about the cleverness of foxes, in Olaus Magnus’ Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, printed in 1555. So it has been around in Europe for quite a while.
It’s an interesting antique fable but it wouldn’t work in reality. First, undercoat doesn’t get wet even if the top coat is, especially merely by swimming. Purple Clogs is right, it’s the soap lathered down to the skin that they are fleeing. Second, almost all the fleas are going to be in the nest/den/bed, not on the fox. Rolling in dust might be more effective.
You may be interested in knowing that the Sioux name for a fox translates to “lousy one”.
I still don’t understand why the fox wouldn’t just dunk its whole body under. Why provide a floating flea island refuge?
I think the (false) notion is that the fleas will crawl from a wet place to a dry one, but won’t just abandon ship if it’s all getting wet.
Is there a reason for that or is just a coincidence or something?