A PHOTOGRAPH of a German fox has been widely shared online after pranksters joked he was a lost dog. 

Earlier today, the Gazette reported how a Basingstoke man was claiming he picked up the stranded animal on Brighton Hill.

The gentleman shared an image of the sulky fox staring into the camera from the footwell of a car. 

Posting to a community group on Facebook, the man wrote: "I found a dog on Brighton Hill in the park. It is very distrustful.

“Does not have a collar. If anyone recognises your pet, please PM me.”

Tonight the story took a turn when the woman who took the original photograph got in touch with the Gazette. 

Nicole Sag, from Germany, said she thought it would be funny to take a picture of her friend's fox named Trixie and pretend it was a dog. 

She posted the joke into a local community group and within 24 hours it had prompted hundreds of fellow pranksters to follow suit. 

Basingstoke Gazette:

She said: "I posted the photo to my Facebook and a local group in August and it has now been stolen and apparently translated hundreds of time. 

"The fox in the picture is used in films. She is tame and is well-trained and lives in a fenced area. She is not a missing animal and is not a pet."

Explaining how it came about, she said: "I thought it would be fun to pretend I had found a dog to see how many people believed this.

"The answer is, too many." 

Nicole said it was a cautionary tale about how quickly a joke can get out of hand online. 

While Trixie has an owner, Nicole is keen to stress the animal is not treated as a domesticated pet.

"She lives as freely as she can. She has a large enclosure but she couldn't survive in the wild anymore. She has an owner but she is not kept as a pet but according to her needs as a wild animal," she told the Gazette.

The ginger animal was given the name is Trixie, after the female fox from The Fox and The Hound.