My long lost dog, Gravey

My dog ran away or what-have you almost two years ago. We had just moved here, to a new place, right next to the Daniel Boone National Forest, which is huge!

This is a pic of my dog, Gravey about 3 years ago. Somehow he got out of his dog kennel and I saw him late that night because his barking alerted me he was out front. Which was odd because his dog kennel was in back. I cracked the door a little, looked out, and saw him backing up in our driveway, barking in the opposite direction. Almost like something was coming after him. We do have coyotes around here, and that's the first thing that went through my mind. All the neighbors have their dogs in fenced yards or kennels, so none are really out running, but it could have been a dog too. But I yelled, "Get!" and after a few moments, my dog, Gravey, came on up towards the porch. I then shut the door because I was home alone. My husband was working away that week. So I didn't feel safe going out and locking him back up right then. I thought to myself, "I'll just put him back in his kennel in the morning." And I now wish I had done that then!

And we looked and looked for him. Days, weeks and months of searching all the main and back roads. And nothing.

And then outta the blue, my sister ran across this pic to the right, of a dog one of her friends found on the side of a road, about 20 minutes from our house, around the Cave Run Lake.

I immediately thought it was my dog. I had her ask him all kinds of questions about where and when he saw it. And why he took a pic, and so on. He said he was just driving around with friends, saw it and they feed him and let him back go, because he had on a collar.

Do you think it's the same dog? Is the flash maybe making the brown appear lighter in the photo above? My husband thinks the pics are of the same dog, but as much as I want to believe it is, I don't think they are the same.

What do you think?

Wander how I came up with the name Gravey for him?