This picture shows a poorly fox waiting for her ambulance to arrive on the comfort of someone’s sofa.

The young vixen was rescued by the Riverside Animal Centre, Beddington, on Friday, September 6, in Purley, after suffering a bite wound most likely caused by a dog.

Your Local Guardian:

The fox is now in the care of the animal centre

The fox had been in the care of the rescue team before and was well known to the lady who lived in the house.

Centre manager, Ted Burden, said: “She feeds this fox every night and it will come in if she encourages it. She thought it best to contain it as it will run from strangers.

“It's not the first fox we've had on a sofa or bed. You could smell the infected wound very strongly upon entering the room.

“The fox moved off as we approached but only hid behind another sofa from where we easily extracted him.

“We spent a good 30 minutes cleaning his wound and removing the maggots. It was probably caused by a dog bite judging by the size and shape of the punctures and lacerations.

“The wound will heal just fine and we will release the fox back – probably in a couple of weeks or so.”