The Fox and the Hound - altered ending?

[SV7]

I am 100% sure that Old Chief was supposed to (and did) die in The Fox and the Hound, and that changes were made at the last minute, the new guard not having the balls of Uncle Walt (his death would've meant some dramatic resonance; Chief only appears after his fall in the broken leg scene and at the end; Amos' line "That fox of yours almost killed Old Chief..." is delivered off camera; and let's not forget that Amos and Chief would have been the ones hunting Tod's mother at the beginning of the film.)

Has this ever been stated in any official literature?

[Uncle Remus]

i remember reading something that originally Don Bluth, the one who created The Secret of NIMH and All Dogs Go To Heaven, worked at Disney and one of the last Disney movies he worked on was The Fox and the Hound. Bluth was asked to animate the scene in which Old Chief is hit by the train and falls to the ground.the original story plot was that when Chief was hit by the train, he was actually killed. but Disney thought that scene was too scary and too cruel for a children's movie. none of the animation was changed from that scene but in the scene where Chief falls to the ground, it looks like he was killed. in the movie credits, Don Bluth's name isnt mentioned anywhere since he left Disney early during the animation process to work on The Secret of NIMH. so actually in the original story, Chief was supposed to be dead after that scene.