A photo of a dog has gone viral on social media as people can’t quite figure out what they’re looking at. 

If you were to scroll through Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), or even TikTok, you’d come across millions, if not billions, of adorable animal photos.

However, none have left people as mind-boggled as the image described as the ‘headless dog.’

The mind-bending snap shows a dog that at first glance, looks ‘headless.’

Discussing it in the comments, one person writes: “I still can’t figure it out.”

Another says: “It’s messing with my mind! I know he’s not really headless but I can’t unsee it. Make it stop…”

“I still can’t make it make sense!” stresses a third.

Someone else asks: “How is that possible?”

“I have so many questions,” comments a fifth.

But not everyone is as confused by the picture, with one viewer penning: “The amount of people that think this dog is actually headless is astonishing.”

As the comment above states, the dog is definitely not headless!

It’s simply an optical illusion – when an image is visually perceived differently from how it appears in reality.

The dog’s owner was trying to capture a snap of their four-legged friend when they turned around to lick themselves.

It turns out the canine had previously had one of its front legs amputated, which explains the scarring where people presumed its ‘head’ had been.

Since the snap has gone viral online, another image has been shared in which the dog looks perfectly normal.

But this isn’t the only dog that has created an optical illusion…

Another image has taken the internet by storm as once again, people can’t figure out what they’re looking at.

The photo shows two dogs, one at the front and one towards the back – with the latter looking rather bizarre.

Reacting to the snap, one Redditor wrote: “My brain struggled to make sense of this for ten seconds.”

“Ouch, this hurts my brain,” commented a second.

A third weighed in: “Unsettling as f***.”

After taking a mini deep-dive into the image, it didn’t take long for Redditors to figure out what was actually happening in the photo – once you see it, you feel silly for not having done so in the first place.

It turned out the pup simply has its head tilted to the side, which is pretty obvious once you think about it.

Were you fooled by the optical illusions? Let us know in the comments.