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Man Rescues Five Abandoned Puppies and Discovers That They Are Fox Cubs
Talk about the ultimate surprise!
When Craig Mcgettrick was cleaning out his local garden, he stumbled upon a newborn liter of puppies. Mcgettrick brought the puppies to his local shelter and posted some pictures on Facebook to see if anyone had any information about the new pups.
However, once the photos got some traction on the internet, Mcgettrick was contacted by Martin Hemmington, the founder of the National Fox Welfare Society. Hemmington quickly informed Mcgettrick that he did not find puppies, but baby fox cubs instead.
“We were contacted by a lovely lady called Beccie through our Facebook Page,” Hemmington wrote on Facebook. “Beccie had sent a few photos asking if the babies in the photos were indeed fox cubs. We confirmed they certainly were. Beccie advised us that they had been taken to a rescue center in Liverpool mistakenly as puppies, not fox cubs.”
Once Mcgettrick found out his puppies were foxes, he wanted to return them to where he found them so that they would reunite with their mother.
According to Hemmington, it is not uncommon for a vixen to leave her cubs when they young.
“Vixens leave their cubs all the time whilst they are in the den, and as they get older they’ll begin to explore their surroundings more and more, and become less dependent on mum as they get older,” Hemmington explained on Facebook.
Knowing that the mother might be out, Hemmington recommended bringing the cubs back without feeding them first. This technique would help lure the vixen back to her den.
“I didn’t give the cubs any milk in order for them to be hungry so they’d cry out and call for their mum, which they did,” Hemmington said. “I put them around the same place they were found, as I knew the mum would be looking for them, and she’d be checking the place she last had them.”
He continued, “I believe once she’d picked the first one up and knew the others were safe in the box, she waited until it got dark to get the rest as she must not have felt safe moving the cubs in daylight.”
By the end of the night, the vixen had retuned and brought all of her cubs home!
Check out the full timeline of the story below.