I may not be David Attenborough but in recent years I've seen alligators and pelicans in America, moose and buffalo in Canada and koalas and kangaroos in Australia.

Until last week, however, I'd never seen a fox standing in a garden centre car park just feet away from one of Brighton's busiest road junctions.

Basil Brush it was not. Rather it cut a shabby and forlorn figure, a creature that had obviously seen better days - at least I hope it had.

Its coat was dirty and matted, so sparse in places that it looked as if an army of moths had done their worst, and it was limping.

Now some people might have spotted the animal and decided to ignore its plight and continue walking on.

This fox was not, after all, some bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, photogenic piece of wildlife straight out of some Walt Disney movie.

Neither was it the sort of fox that inspires breweries to call their pubs The Happy Fox, The Laughing Fox or The Snooty Fox. This fox was a mess - and hey, did anyone mention rabies?

But I couldn't pass it by. Suddenly I discovered I had heartstrings and they were being tugged.

"Hello, fella," I said to the fox. I didn't know its sex. To me, all canines are male and all felines female.

The fox was naturally apprehensive. When I spoke it backed away and sat shivering behind a parked car.

As I live in an urban neighbourhood where bloodsports are confined to the occasional confrontation between queue jumpers in the local shops, my fox (note how quickly I had become attached to it) was hardly in any danger from those folk on horseback who like to dress up in red jackets and engage in country pursuits, ie killing creatures they regard as vermin.

But yet I couldn't leave it there, totally unprotected, could I?

"Course you could, I would have done," said a friend when I told him (but then he's the sort of man who could watch Bambi and remain dry-eyed).

No, if I had left the fox alone it would have been on my conscience, its sad, emaciated shape haunting my dreams.

I went into the garden centre where someone phoned the RSPCA. Catching a fox, even a lame fox, was not all that easy, we were told.

I was asked to check out how approachable the animal might be, taking a broom to measure the distance between it and myself.

T his didn't strike me as a good idea and it obviously struck the fox as pretty crummy too. It took one look at the broom and hurriedly limped off into an adjacent back garden.

"It's all right, the RSPCA are sending someone, I've just phoned them," said a passer-by clutching her mobile.

Like me she'd seen the fox and, like me, just couldn't walk on and leave it.

"Have you any idea where it's going?" she asked as the fox vanished.

"Yes," I said, "I have a very good idea."

Smart fox, I thought, as I went round the corner and in through the door of the local medical practice.

"Excuse me," I said to the receptionist. "I think you'll find a fox in your back garden."

She looked surprised.

"Don't worry," I said. "It's got an injured leg - I reckon it's come to see the doctor!"