What was claimed
A Facebook user is seeking help to reunite a lost puppy with its owners.
Our verdict
False. The picture of the ‘lost’ dog dates back at least five years.
Post claiming a lost puppy has been found is fake
28 November 2022
A Facebook post claiming to be from someone who has found a lost dog is fake.
The post, which appears on a community page for the Derbyshire town of Sandiacre, describes the puppy as a “FOUND DOG” and says: “My fiancée and I found this sweet girl by our gate. We just got her checked at a vet she's not microchipped. She definitely misses her family I fed her and I will continue feeding until I find the owner please help me find the owner [sic].”
The post is accompanied by a picture of a young puppy sitting on the edge of a chair in a living room with a television in the background.
The post was shared on 28 November 2022. However, a reverse image search shows that the picture dates back to February 2018, when it was uploaded by a Reddit user seeking help in choosing a name for her pet. The puppy is also male rather than female as claimed in the Facebook post.
The same Facebook account responsible for the Sandiacre post also uploaded identical posts to groups in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario, claiming the puppy was found there on the same day and at the same time as the UK post.
The same image and text has also been uploaded by other Facebook accounts to groups in North Wales, Somerset and Middlesbrough.
We have written before about Facebook posts about supposedly lost or injured pets.
Image courtesy of Camylla Battani
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the picture in the post was taken at least five years ago.