Something's fishy with James Gardner's "Big Dog"

Background

In an article entitled "Dog suit incident leads to surprise donor in Lake Forest recall effort," the OC Register states a "Facebook post that went up in February, Gardner said, insinuated the pro-recall protester who wore a dog suit to a city event that month had been Gardner."

"'I got angry and decided to get involved,' he said. 'I asked what they needed and they needed cash, so I wrote a check. I had no idea how much they needed nor how much my contributions were in comparison with anyone else.'"

Here is the Register's article: http://m.ocregister.com/articl...

Use in Gardner's 2010 Campaign

So I did a search for "James Gardner Lake Forest" images on Google and found the above picture. It seems James Gardner used the same dog costume to model his campaign's t-shirt to help boost sales for his failed 2010 election on his own campaign website - http://www.gardnerforcouncil.c... (the picture is dated September 4, 2010 between posts dated September 2, 2010 and October 4, 2010). Here is what he said about his shirts and the dog costume:

"T shirts are in. They come in L, XL, and XXL. Big Dog is wearing the XXL in this photo.

T-shirts are only $10 each. They are a high quality cotten [sic] and both sides are full color.

Also, check out the car magnet signs."

"Big Dog" nickname

First, the dog costume didn't offend him when his 2010 campaign used it to boost t-shirt sales. More curious, however, is that he has a nickname for the costume - "Big Dog." It make the casual reader think it may even be his own costume.

Conclusion

When Gardner used the same dog costume to model campaign t-shirts in the 2010 election, it was very acceptable. However, it now angers Gardner when people say it was him in the Big Dog costume during the recall. Why would this make someone so upset - enough to write $30,000 to the recall campaign - when "Big Dog" was used in his own campaign just a few years ago? One might think that the dog is just following its master.

Could it be that this story is not true? If his story isn't true, does that mean that Gardner didn't donate $30,000 to the recall?