A dog has been found lying on the side of the road after a hit-and-run incident at various locations across the UK.
There’s no evidence this dog has actually been found in the locations claimed. Multiple other versions of the post have been shared in groups across the UK and in the US. The dog pictured has been used in other hoax posts since at least 2022.
Facebook posts claiming to show a dog found lying on the side of the road after being involved in a hit-and-run incident have been shared thousands of times in community groups for different locations across the UK.
The same photo with similar text has been shared in local groups for High Wycombe, East London, Edinburgh and Swindon, among others.
One post says: “My husband and i are seriously searching for this guy’s owner We found him lying on the side of the road 2 hours ago here in Scotland
“He was involved in a hit & run incident. We took him to the vet he is not chipped I know someone must be looking for him., Jill is taking care of him Please bump this post to help me find his owner! [sic]”
Other posts have nearly identical text, with the location changed.
But there is no evidence that the dog pictured has been found in these locations. Although Full Fact was not able to find the original source of the picture, many other posts with similar text were also found in community groups in the United States.
These posts all have the comments turned off, which can be an indication that a post is a hoax. They also use similar language to previous posts we’ve checked in the past that have used other people’s images to claim they are looking for the owners of injured or lost dogs.
Derbyshire Police labelled a very similar post with the same picture a “hoax” and warned about "bait and switch" posts, which ask people to “please bump” or “flood your feeds”, but have disabled the comments. The police warned: “Once shared widely, the original content will be edited to a scam of some sort”.
The picture of this dog has been associated with “bait and switch” posts since at least 2022.
We’ve written many times about these kinds of hoax posts, which may use reports of missing or injured dogs, missing elderly people or children, or criminals on the loose, and can overwhelm and eclipse genuine information on local community groups.
Our investigation into these types of hoax posts found they’re often edited later to include links to surveys, freebies or cheap housing. In February, we found these hoax posts continue to be an issue, with at least 47 communities across the UK being victim to nine different hoaxes we fact checked that month.
We’ve written to Meta asking the company to take stronger action in response to this problem.
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 there’s no evidence that this dog is missing in the locations stated and the same picture has been circulating in hoax posts since at least 2022.
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