Man thought he’d rescued five newborn ‘puppies’ from under an old mattress — but one grave mistake sent them right back where they came from

Unsure if they were pups or kittens, he gently placed them in a box and took them to a rescue center.

PUBLISHED OCT 28, 2025

(L ) Newborn little black puppies; (R) A man looks shocked, reading something on his phone (Representative Cover Source: Getty Images | Photo by (L) Astakhova; (R) ridvan_celik)

Finding pups in unlikely places is not uncommon. When Craig Mcgettrick found five stray "puppies" wrapped in an old mattress, he wanted to bring them to a rescue, but not before sharing the discovery with his Facebook followers. When someone who saw his post reached out to a wildlife expert, it sparked a rescue mission to set things right.

Three brown coated puppies - Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by Mateja Lemic — Three brown coated puppies. (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Photo by Mateja Lemic)

Mcgettrick and his co-worker were clearing out waste from the garden in England when they came across an old mattress. Looking closer, they noticed that there were five black "puppies" sleeping inside. Unsure if they were pups or kittens, Mcgrettrick placed them in a cardboard box and took them to an animal rescue center. However, before taking the five little ones, he posted photos on his Facebook page, "After a rubbish removal job, we unearthed a pile of rubbish and these little pups appeared in the rubbish. We have taken them to an animal sanctuary so they have a chance to survive."

Sanitation worker taking out garbageand dumping into truck to be compacted. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images| Photo by People Images) — Sanitation worker taking out garbage and dumping into truck to be compacted. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by People Images)

Luckily, the photos caught the attention of Martin Hemmington, founder of the National Fox Welfare Society. A lady named Beccie shared the pictures with Hemmington to confirm whether the “puppies” were actually 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," Hemmington shared. According to The Dodo, the mother fox had likely been using the mattress as a den. Hemmington got in touch with Paul McDonald, a local rescuer, who found a volunteer to pick the cubs up and deliver them to him. McDonald took them back to the garden to reunite with their mother.

A fox pup. (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Piotr Kucharzewski)

"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," McDonald explained. Around 4 p.m. that same day, McDonald placed the cardboard box containing the fox cubs back in the garden, adding a hot water bottle inside to keep them warm. He then waited patiently, and about an hour later, the mother fox appeared. At first, she took just one cub and didn’t return for more than an hour. Eventually, she came back again, retrieving one cub after another until all were gone.

McDonald, happy about the mission, said, "It made me feel ecstatic that the cubs went back to their mum, as it would have been a tragedy not only for the cubs not being brought up by their own mother, but for the mother to lose her cubs." He added, "This is without a doubt the best kind of rescue in my line of work, when nature is allowed to take its own course."

A 2020 study published by The Royal Society found that urban foxes tend to have shorter and wider muzzles, smaller braincases, and reduced sexual dimorphism compared with rural foxes. The shape differences resembled aspects of the "domestication syndrome" (traits often seen in domesticated animals). The study proves Mcgettrick's initial skepticism about whether the little animals were dog pups, due to their similar physical features.