In March 2018, firefighters in Colorado Springs received a call about a litter of eight little puppies abandoned in a storm drain.
The firefighters quickly headed over to the area. They hoped they would be able to the save the puppies before it was too late.
The firefighters reached the drain and started pulling the tiny animals out. The animals had black fur, and so the firefighters guessed that they were Black Labrador puppies. They looked for the puppies’ mom, but she wasn’t around. And so, they decided it would be best to take the “puppies” to the veterinarian at The Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region.
When they got to the vet’s office, they learned the truth about these animals: they weren’t puppies with black fur at all. They were actually foxes with dark red fur!
“They took them [to the shelter] and actually one of the vets in that location said, ‘No, these aren’t Labradors, these are foxes,” Fire Captain Brian Vaughn told Inside Edition. “[The firefighter] was just in shock.”
While the firefighters were surprised, Travis Saunder, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife District Wildlife Manager, wasn’t shocked at all.
“This time of year there are a lot of animals that are starting to have their young, and they have them in small dens that are places that we can encounter when we’re recreating in the outdoors like we like to do,” Saunder told CBS News.
The firefighters brought the baby foxes back to the drain, hoping that their mom would come back for them soon.
“These animals are going to be put back where we found them, hoping that the mother is still in the area and can pick up the normal duties like she would,” Saunder explained.
The Humane Society kept an eye on the foxes, waiting to see if their mother would come. Unfortunately, the foxes’ mother never showed up.
Once the Humane Society saw that the foxes’ mother wasn’t around, they took the foxes back to the Animal Clinic of Woodland Park. Here, the fox kits have plenty of space to run around and lots of people to care for them. Once the foxes are big enough, they’ll be released back into the wild.
The person who called in these fox kits made an honest mistake—they really do look a whole lot like puppies! Thankfully, the fox kits are in good hands now. If you’d like to learn more about this unique story, check out the video below.
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