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"A week or two back, the little woman and me were coming back from our workout and I saw a yellow lab running free a block or 2 from Elwoods house. So I stopped the car and went over to him and wasn't sure if he was Elwood or not. I talked to him and petted him and all that trying to figure out if he was Elwood or not. I couldn't tell. But the dog was very pleasant and didn't mind me messing with him.

I got in the car and went to Elwoods owners house and knocked on the door (7 a.m.). The lady came to the door and I asked if Elwood may have gotten out and told them the story. But Elwood was safe in the house. So it was a case of mistaken identity."

I love that story! Hilarious. I must tell you about a similar thing.

I have 3 Setters - a mother and two daughters. Also a friend of mine (a woman born in Jamaica, raised in New York, and living here) is the guardian of the brother of the younger dogs. Brando. She goes back to New York every Christmas for a few weeks to spend time with her aging mother, so I usually look after Brando while she's gone.

Now, male setters tend to wander, but the females tend to stick closer. So when I let them all out of the car, they don't go anywhere - in fact, on occasions where someone has left the rear gate open, I've discovered them waiting for me on the front porch. So I guess I can get a little careless.

I came back with all 4 dogs one day and was just getting my groceries out of the boot. In a flash, Brando was gone. I really panicked. Hustled my 3 into the house and set out in the car to look for him. Up a parellel street and to the right down a cul de sac, I thought I spotted him. So I drove up and jumped out and immediately berated him for running away. But as I was talking to him, I began to wonder if he was actually Brando - yet, he came to me and obeyed me, so I was confused. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the collar Brando had been wearing. Some woman was walking by with her own little squirt of a dog and I asked her if she recognized him from the neighborhood, but she said she hadn't seen any Setters around there.

I opened the rear door of the car and he jumped right in. I went home, let him out, and went into the house and he followed me every step of the way. But inside, in the foyer, the other 3 seemed a bit subdued and were eyeing him very suspiciously (if you'll permit me a bit of anthropomorphism). Then I noticed that "Brando" was running all over the place sniffing at everything, as if he was in an unfamiliar place.

By now, I was in a bit of a panic, thinking that not only might I have lost Brando (I live near a busy street where cars will travel at 40, even 50 mph), but that I might just have kidnapped someone else's dog. I tried to phone New York to ask about the collar, but no one was home.

So I drove him back to the spot I'd found him and went to the door of the corner house there to ask about him. Some poor elderly lady answered the door and initially staggered a bit at the sight of these vagabonds at her door and I was afraid the poor dear would have a heart attack. I stood well back and quickly asked her about the dog - she told me he belonged to a family that lived just up a laneway right across the street. I took him home, but all this time I was getting sick with worry about the real Brando. Not only for traffic, but also because there had been a rash of thefts of purebred dogs in County Wicklow over the previous months.

Back at my own street, but down near the corner and the fast road, I was asking people going by if they'd seen a dog in some state of alarm, when one of them turned around and pointed up the street and asked, "is that him?" Sure enough, here came brando up the street, without a care in the world and looking like he was just wondering what all the excitement was about.

Anyway, sorry to turn that into such a long story. You just reminded me of it with your own case of mistaken identity, which had me splitting my sides here.