have more empathic awareness of social relationships than some humans.

Good fox.

"But a few minutes later the guilty looking fox crept back into the car park with his bushy tail between his legs..."

Talk about anthropomorphising! What is a "guilty look" on a fox's face?

Now, given that a comment from me in this section wouldn't be complete without a gratuitous pun...

It's a shame that this didn't happen on November 5th. Yes, folks, that's [ahem] Guy Fox Day.

I lived outside in the summer and cooked liver one night. I left some in the package to cook in the morning but when I woke up there was no sign of the liver or package. A couple days later the empty package was back near where I left it, then shortly after that I saw a family of raccoons living nearby.
I'm sure lots of animals feel "human" emotions. I have a lot of reasons to think so. One example: I was sitting on the edge of a forest looking in and a fox trotted by and smiled at me.
I've read that coyotes have dug around traps set for them and urinated on them. That seems like an obvious example of contempt.

A fox moved his facial muscles in a way similar to how a human moves his facial muscles when he smiles, therefore the fox was expressing a human emotion?

Was the coyote thinking "piss on it!' or was he marking it?

Let's say that your dog barks whenever a stranger approaches you. Is he doing so out of loyalty, to protect you? Or, given that you're his caregiver, he is doing so to protect himself?

If your cat jumps into your lap, is he being affectionate, or does he want attention?

Foxes, raccoons, coyotes, dogs and cat are not people, too!