Dog Gone

Dog Gone, also known as Diamond Dog Caper, is a 2008 American comedy film directed by Mark Stouffer and starring Luke Benward, French Stewart, Brittany Curran, and Kevin Farley. The film revolves around a young boy who rescues and hides a golden retriever carrying a fortune in stolen diamonds from a band of thugs. Plot When Owen (Luke Benward) and his distracted older sister, Lilly (Brittany Curran), are alone and their parents are away, Owen delivers the paper while being bullied by a school bully named Dexter and his gang (who harass Owen by throwing his bike, newspapers and pants off a bridge), and spends afternoons in a forest hideaway making inventions and spinning tall tales about a "Mad Man of the Mountain" in which he claims to be a scary man who used to work in a circus freak show but later moved to live in the mountains to be free. He encounters three thugs named Blackie (French Stewart), Bud (Kevin Farley) and Arty (Kelly Perine) who have a mistreated dog and Owen's life changes. Unbeknownst to Owen, the thugs have previously committed a diamond heist and supposedly hid the stolen diamonds on the dog's collar. With Owen's help, the dog escapes from the thugs and Owen bonds with the golden retriever whom he names Diamond. When he reads a newspaper account about the thugs' diamond heist, he soon realizes about how they are the chief suspects and how they hid the diamonds on Diamond. He takes her to the police, but the police believe that the story is not true, thinking that Owen might be telling stories about the "Mad Man" making friends with a bigfoot. So Owen decides to look after Diamond. He hides her at his forest hideaway and visits her often to feed her and comfort her. Meanwhile, the thugs are searching for Owen and Diamond. They attempt to confront him personally by showing up at his house after getting the location from Dexter. Owen escapes into the woods but the thugs catch up with him just as Diamond escapes. As the thugs explore the woods he warns them about the "Mad Man" and shows them some of the inventions he built for the "Mad Man". Owen then escapes the thugs and rigs his hideaway in the forest with booby traps for them. As he heads back to his house, he is caught by the thugs again, but Owen manages to escape from their grasp. He runs into the woods with Diamond and the thugs give chase. They trace Owen to his hideaway and search the whole area from him, but end up setting off Owen's booby traps one by one.