Case 301

Case 301: Dog Gone Mystery

Celest St. Claire's Notes

Hey,

As I mentioned in my note, I’m sure that my conclusions will match Sullivan’s. That being the case, if you’ve already asked him about these clues, you probably won’t learn anything new here.

If you do choose to use this site, you’ll still need to email Sullivan about the case’s Solution once you’ve figured out who stole Debra’s dog.

If you haven’t emailed Sullivan yet, you can visit SleuthKings.com/Case-301 to send him your first email. When you want to tell him the dognapper’s name, just include the word Solution in the body of your email.

If you need help making sense out of the message on the ad for the dog park once you’ve solved Clues 1-4, you can send Sullivan a message with the phrase Park Ad in the body of your email.

If you want to see my thoughts on any of the clues in your case file, just click the corresponding button below.

So far, I’ve found all 9 incorrect words, but I haven’t been able to make sense out of them yet. I tried putting them together, but that didn’t work.

Each word has an extra letter that makes it incorrect given the message’s context, right? What if we try looking at the extra letters in each word? Maybe that will help us spell out whatever it is we’re looking for.

Don’t worry – I just figured it out!

The words with extra letters are:

“Gone, free, fore, bee, brown, bread, soon, crowns, one.”

If you only look at the extra letters that make each word incorrect given the message’s context, you get:

“Green Bone”

Does that mean the message is telling us that Debra’s dog loves to stare at a green bone? What’s that supposed to mean?

Hold on, there’s a picture of a bone on the dog park ad, isn’t there? Do you think this might be able to help us decode part of the message? Then again, even if it can, I bet we’ll need to find the other clues’ messages before we can fully do that. For now, I’d recommend writing down that “the dog stares at the green bone.”

Don’t forget, if you need help making sense out of the ad for the dog park once you’ve solved Clues 1-4, you can send Sullivan a message with the phrase Park Ad in the body of your email. If you haven’t sent him your first email yet, you can do so at SleuthKings.com/Case-301.

I just retyped the message without any spaces – here’s what it looks like:

“THECOLLIEDOGPUGLOOKS

POODLEATRETRIEVERTHE

CHOWORANGEHUSKYCAT.”

This still doesn’t make much sense to me, but there’s got to be some kind of message here. I wonder if the list of adoptable dogs could help us find and eliminate some words from this mess of letters.

I got it! If you look closely, you can see each of the breeds of the adoptable dogs spelled out in the string of letters. I just spaced everything out so that the breeds are visible – here’s what it looks like:

“THE COLLIE DOG PUG LOOKS POODLE AT RETRIEVER THE CHOW ORANGE HUSKY CAT.”

If you remove each of the dog breeds, the rest of the message says:

“The dog looks at the orange cat.”

Isn’t there a picture of a cat on the dog park ad? Do you think this might be able to help us decode part of the message? Then again, even if it can, I bet we’ll need to find the other clues’ messages before we can fully do that. For now, I’d recommend writing down that “the dog looks at the orange cat.”

I just found the last answer to the “Across” questions. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Across:

1.Charlie

4.Golden

6.Lancelot

9.Austin

10.Treats

11.Retriever

I finally found the last of the “Down” answers. Here they are:

Down:

1.Collie

2.Flyer

3.Sniffing

5.Detective

7.Leash

8.Bear

After plugging those answers into the crossword puzzle, the letters marked by handwritten numbers spell:

“Red Hydrant”

So, I’m guessing this means “Yogi’s favorite thing to look at” is a red hydrant?

This seems meaningless at first glance, but isn’t there a picture of a hydrant on the dog park ad? Do you think this might be able to help us decode part of the message? Then again, even if it can, I bet we’ll need to find the other clues’ messages before we can fully do that. For now, I’d recommend writing down that “the dog looks at the red hydrant.”

I’ve been staring at this for a while, and I think I’ve realized something – it’s not just the handwritten words that are important – it’s their color, too. The color of the words matches the color of specific symbols, which should help us know which section we need to look at.

I’m pretty sure the numbers inside each of the symbols are telling us which word in the designated colored section we need to look at. Let’s try giving that a shot to see if we can find whatever message the dognapper is trying to send.

I’ve cracked the message!

The first colorful handwritten word is a blue bone, right? That means we need to look at the section marked with a blue bone, which reads “Bear wishes he weren’t chewed on like the pets’ treats.”

From there, since there’s an “8” in the blue bone, we have to look at the 8^th word in the sentence, which is “the.”

When you do that for each of the colorful handwritten words, the message says:

“The dog sees his brown bear.”

There’s a picture of a bear on the dog park ad, right? Do you think this might be able to help us decode part of the message? Then again, even if it can, I bet we’ll need to find the other clues’ messages before we can fully do that. For now, I’d recommend writing down that “the dog sees the brown bear.”

Of course, once you’ve cracked the message and know the dognapper’s identity, you should send Sullivan an email to let him know. When you do, be sure to include the word Solution in the body of your email so he knows what you’re talking about.

Good Luck!