A woman raised an abandoned 'puppy' for two months, before discovering it was an entirely different animal all along.
Hu Nan, who lives in Songjiang District in Shanghai, China, found the small creature in her neighbour's garden during lockdown.
The tiny dark animal was visibly days old and "huddled on a pile of fallen leaves", struggling to breathe in the cold.
With no wildlife experts around to help, Hu decided to take the little creature in herself.
Her family named the 'puppy' Jixiang, which means good luck, and used electric blankets, comforters and milk to keep it alive.
To their delight, the poorly animal survived and grew in size.
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"For the next month, Jixiang slept on my mother's palm every day. My mother would put it down after it fell into sleep, then she went to bed herself," Hu said.
But as the days passed, the animal began to look less and less like a dog - so Hu shared her suspicions with an animal expert.
"I sent him some videos and photos, and he later identified Jixiang as a raccoon dog," she said.
On June 9, volunteers and staff from the Shan Shui Conservation Center identified Jixiang as a raccoon dog under the guidance of Shanghai Forestry Station.
Raccoon dogs are widely distributed in Shanghai, and are often found living wildly in suburbs.
They closely resemble a fox and aren't recommended to own as pets, as their needs cannot be met in a typical household.
Jixiang was taken to the Shan Shui Conservation Center, where the raccoon dog is now "living a comfortable life at the zoo".
Hu said: "It eats a lot and grows much larger than before. The experts say they'll keep Jixiang at the zoo till it grows bigger.
"When it's ready, they'll probably release it to the wild, but it's undecided yet."
Jixiang isn't the only wild animal to be mistaken for a dog - a family recently rescued a "distressed" puppy from the side of the road to discover it was a baby coyote.
After realising their mix-up, they called their local wildlife centre for help, and passed the animal into their safe hands.
Cape Wildlife Center, in Massachusetts, confirmed it was an Eastern coyote that had been separated from his pack.
The centre explained that this case had a "happy ending" but it could have "easily gone differently".
Do you have a dog story to share? Email nia.dalton@reachplc.com.
