Phoenix, Arizona - An animal lover thought they had found a litter of abandoned kittens or puppies and took them to a shelter. But what kind of creature were they actually dealing with?

As the Arizona Humane Society announced on Facebook last month, the little guys were not in distress at all.

Nor were they kittens or puppies, but a litter of cute gray foxes!

The animal rights activists immediately knew what to do and took the furry friends to a wildlife park, where they were raised and – as soon as they were old enough – released back into the wild.

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But what should you actually do if you happen to stumble upon a litter of young four-legged friends?

"The best thing we can do is leave them for when their mama returns," Jennifer Armbruster of the Arizona Humane Society said.

However, if the mother animal is away from her offspring for more than eight hours, the little ones can then be considered orphaned – and of course, they can then be helped, Armbruster explained.