Craig McGetterick, a New Brighton resident, was cleaning his yard when he came across a litter of newborn puppies hiding under a pile of rubbish.

The man took the babies to the nearest animal shelter because he thought the babies were lost or abandoned.

Craig posted about his findings on Facebook on the way to the shelter and added some photos.

Then thousands of notes from followers began to arrive at his door, revealing to him an unexpected fact: he had destroyed the fox’s nest!

Fox cubs at birth resemble typical puppies in many ways. It is not surprising that man could not distinguish foundlings from wild creatures.

These hypotheses were supported by the workers of the shelter.

Craig’s girlfriend Becky then approached the founder of the National Fox Welfare Society, Martin Hemmington, for advice on what to do with the young foxes and why their mother abandoned them in the garden of an apartment building.

According to the expert, foxes can’t always be near cubs.

They sometimes go hunting, as it happens. Mothers eventually teach their pups to become independent, so walks become longer.

Even though the fox’s nest, built behind a pile of rubbish, had already been destroyed, Craig and the National Fox Protection Society attempted to replicate the original environment and returned the foxes to their original location.

They did not feed the foxes in the hope that the hungry animals would call their mother and she would come earlier.

And she finally came!

Craig can only hope that his mistake will not have a bad effect on the future of the family.

In order not to scare away the young foxes and prevent them from growing up and moving to live in their natural environment, he tries not to go out into the backyard.