Agreed. Crappy owners would just let their dog go. This person sounds like a good person. Also people are like "blah blah blah neighbors dog stupid neighbors". Uh, most of my neighbors are elderly or definitely not in any sort of shape to chase after their dogs. I can't say I'd be happy to chase after their dog but I would do it because it needs to be done.

The neighbor could have a similar dog? Besides, it may be difficult to discern the dog when it's dark outside and when OP's mom said it was their dog that escaped.

This has happened to me before, you know your the only one in the neighborhood with that breed (or in my case a pair of cat breeds) so you never think to look for identifying marks when you chase them down. OP, FYI: Later your neighbors are going to see their dog locked in your house and freak, trying to figure out how he got in there so they can pull him back out. This I also know from personal experience.

When I was a little girl, my sister's plain gray cat got outside. We found him a couple houses down, so we picked him up and started to bring him back. Some lady came outside and started asking us why we were stealing her cat and was just being a huge b*tch about it (we were like 10 years old) and she literally grabbed him from our arms and started to take him in. He has a very distinctive meow, so when she started to take him, he protested with a nice loud "maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" and she held him away from her and said "oh, wait, this isn't my cat" and just put him down and walked off like nothing happened. Older lady trying to steal a little girls' cat... I can understand she probably thought, "oh, stupid little girls are trying to take my cat" but, seriously? Way to be a bitch, hope she felt bad that she was trying to steal OUR cat.