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It was one of those heartwarming dog-reunited-with-family stories: Rogue, a missing Peruvian herding dog whose owner was killed in a car accident, had been found and was to be returned to the owner’s family.

As Sara Quinn — the girlfriend of the accident victim’s cousin — hugged the big black dog, news media recorded the event, having been invited by the Central California Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Quinn, 27, said the family had been searching for the dog, and that she planned to bring him back to their ranch in Friant.

But Rogue, the allegedly missing dog was a she, and the dog Quinn was hugging was a he — and he wasn’t the Erickson family’s dog at all.

In fact, the Erickson’s dog was never even missing.

After the Monday reunion, the story — told by the Fresno Bee and others — began unraveling.

Joe Erickson, 61 — father of Richard Erickson, who died after the car crash – saw news reports about the reunion on TV. He called The Bee to say his family’s dog, Rogue, was safe at home and she never had been missing.

He said he had no idea why Quinn manufactured the story.

Tuesday night, Quinn said she wasn’t trying to trick anyone, and that she thought she was doing a good deed by orchestrating a reunion of the dog with its owner’s family, the Bee reported.

The false Rogue, after Quinn adopted him from the shelter, was returned to the SPCA, where he awaits his rightful owner, or adoption.

CCSPCA spokeswoman Beth Caffrey said Tuesday, “we do the best we can to give animals the right opportunity. Unfortunately, we were all misled by this adoption” The CCSPCA is “grateful to have the dog back in our possession,” she said.

The CCSPCA had sent a news release out on Monday, recounting Quinn’s story of having found the family’s missing dog at the shelter. At Monday’s news conference, Caffrey said police had found the dog on the streets on Aug. 13. He was taken in by the shelter and put up for adoption on Aug. 21. Quinn called on Aug. 23 to claim him.

Remember when the truth about Santa Claus slowly started dawning on you? With me, it was when I started seeing him too many places at once — more places than any one person could be, and looking slightly different each time.

Now the same thing has happened with the canine star of “The Artist,” and it was Jimmy Kimmel who exposed the Uggie truth.

A perceptive member of Kimmel’s staff noticed that the Uggie who appeared on Kimmel’s show, on the Ellen DeGeneres show, and at the Oscars, had slightly different markings than that of the dog in the movie.

On Tuesday night, Kimmel showed video that seemed to substantiate differences between the dog in the movie and the dog making media appearances, and he raised the possibility that a fake Uggie, or, as he termed it, a Fuggie, had appeared on his show and the others.

Uggie, who has retired from movies and now serves as Nintendo’s spokesdog (or so we’re being led to believe), was invited back on Kimmel’s show Wednesday, appearing by satellite with his trainer, to clear up the confusion.

Trainer Omar Von Muller explained that three Jack Russells were used in filming — Uggie, who carried most of the load, his brother Dash, and a third named Dude. All three wore make-up so their markings would exactly match each other and have the same brown patch behind their ears — a larger one than Uggie has in real life.

As shattered fantasies go, it’s relatively minor. There were, after all, nine collies who played Lassie (and all were male); there were 22 Labs used in the filming of Marley and me; and there are, of course, thousands of stand-in Santa Clauses who appear in malls to assist the real one who can’t be everywhere at once.

As yet more proof that dogs eat the strangest things, a terrier required veterinary treatment after wolfing down one of his owner’s silicone falsies.

The incident — despite its vast pun potential — was straightforwardly reported on Dogster back in August, in a dispatch written by the veterinarian, Dr. Eric Barchas.

“Last night at the emergency hospital a nurse carried a five-year-old Terrier cross into the treatment room. She advised me matter-of-factly that the dog had consumed a fake breast three hours earlier.”

Barchas determined that the fake breast, while not toxic, would ultimately lodge in the dog’s intestines — the dog being only 15 pounds and the breast being a size B.

With only three hours having passed since ingestion, the vet decided to try to make the dog vomit. The clients authorized the procedure — and the vet forced the dog to vomit with an intravenous injection of a drug called apomorphine.

“The dog vomited copious dog food, a moderate amount of grass, several small twigs, an ear plug, some yarn, and a fake breast, size B,” Barchas wrote. Forty-five minutes later the dog was ready to go home. Barchas didn’t mention how much he billed the family, apparently heeding the Biblical advice:

“Beware of falsie profits.”

A woman in Australia who received a $200 citation for unregistered dogs thinks the inspectors who cited her may have been barking up the wrong tree.

The two dogs in Mishka Gamble’s front yard are fiberglass.

Gamble does have a dog, a 15-year old shih-tzu who rarely goes outside, and then only uses the backyard. She thinks the inspectors mistook her fiberglass dogs — a Staffordshire terrier and a blue heeler — for the real thing.

Gamble told The Cairns Post she was shocked when she received a notice saying she had seven days to pay $200 for the registration of two dogs. “I certainly don’t have two dogs,” she said.

“I’ve got a fiberglass pig and sheep. Do I need to register them too?”

Earlier this month, the Cairns Regional Council came under fire for its dog audit after issuing 61 advisory notices to homes that, it turned out, didn’t have dogs. One resident was given a notice for having a cat bowl in the yard.

Gamble said she had since registered her “real” dog.

(Photo from The Cairns Post/CHRIS HYDE)