A sadly-missed dog returned home to its Brookfield owners after being missing for six months.

It was 8-year-old Dylan Fair, a second-grader at Brookfield Elementary School, who spotted "Duke," his family's purebred chocolate Labrador retriever, while playing at recess. Dylan said he and his other classmates were outside on the playground when the dog spotted him and ran to him.

"We just found him. He was running around and I stopped him and he started to listen," Dylan said.

At first, Dylan's teacher warned him to stay away from the dog but later let him call home after hearing it belonged to his family. Brandy Fair, Dylan's mother, said when she first heard her son's voice she thought something had happened at school. Then, since that it was April 1, she suspected it was an April Fool's prank.

The family had moved from their Yankee Run Road home, where they lived before the dog turned up missing, to a new house on Sunnydell Drive behind Valley View. They thought the dog was either killed or taken in by another family.

"We searched for weeks and weeks and we just gave up hope," Mrs. Fair said.

The dog had gotten loose on many occasions before it disappeared but had always returned home, she said. This most recent time was different. Dylan and his little sister Paige, 4, moped around the house after Duke ran away. They owned the dog for nearly two years before he left home.

"They were both upset," Mrs. Fair said. "Every dog we saw, they thought it was Duke."

The dog may have followed the boy's scent to the playground, Mrs. Fair said. It appeared well fed and in good health, she said, adding that by the looks of its matted fur she suspects someone kept the dog tied to a tree. Dylan said he didn't mind what the dog looked like.

"I was happy when I saw him," he said.

The family took Duke to Petsmart that day to get cleaned and primped.

Now the Fair children can't get enough of Duke. Dylan spent hours playing with the lab after it came home. On Friday Dylan and Paige played a friendly game of fetch with the lab in their front yard.

An invisible fence now keeps Duke from running away.

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Larissa Theodore at ltheodore@sharonherald.com