Orphaned baby deer and puppy become best friends

Heartwarming images show an unlikely friendship that has developed between a dog and an orphaned baby deer.

The fawn was rescued after being found abandoned close to a Hop field by some farmers in Regensburg, Germany, when it was just one week old.

Unable to fend for himself, the baby deer would likely have died had he not been found. But luckily the farmer took him to a family he knew had raised deer before.

The family took the baby deer into their home, where they bottle-fed him, nursed him to full health and named him Hansi.

But it was the family's 12-week-old Australian Shepherd puppy, Lia, who really took the fawn under her wing.

Lia immediately cared for Hansi and treated him as one of her own. Now just three-weeks later, the pair are inseparable and spend their days playing and cuddling up to one another.

Pet photographer and microbiologist Anna Auerbach, 28, was lucky enough to capture the pair's special bond on camera, in a series of cute snaps.

Anna, from Regensburg, told Caters News: "The two of them get along really well.

"Hansi sees Lia and the other dogs she is being brought up with as family.

"The shoot only took about thirty minutes.

"All I had to do was lie on the grass and wait for the right moments - there were so many."