How to play

1. The yard is split into coloured gardens. Each garden hides exactly one dog, and the panel above the yard shows which breed.
2. Every breed claims space: the Yorkie the 8 squares around it, the Corgi its row, the German Shepherd its column, the Samoyed its row and column, and the Dalmatian both diagonals. Fences stop every claim.
3. No dog may stand in another dog's space. Spaces may overlap.
4. Tap a square once to mark ✕ where a dog can't be, and tap again to clear it. Slide a finger across squares to mark them all; a slide that starts on a ✕ clears instead. Double-tap a square when you're sure its garden's dog is there. A dog you find stays.
5. Dogs with a padlock came with the puzzle.
6. A wrong guess breaks a bone (a life) and leaves a red ✕. If it lands in another dog's space, the two dogs fight. Three broken bones end the game.
7. Stuck? Hint marks squares that can't hold a dog and says why, or outlines the one square left for a garden's dog. Reveal uncovers a dog.

Treats, hints and reveals

Hints and reveals cost treats: a hint 1, a reveal 3. You start with 5 and earn more only by playing well: three stars on a level the first time (+1), winning a golden-bone level (+2), winning the daily challenge (+2), finishing every level of a chapter (+3) and earning every star in a chapter (+5). Each reward is paid once. A hint that has nothing new to show is free.

Golden bones

Some levels (25, 35, 45 and so on) give you a single golden bone instead of three: one wrong guess and the level is lost, so work it out before you guess. You can try again as often as you like.

Every board has exactly one answer, and you can always reach it by logic, without guessing.

Levels and stars

Levels come in order, in chapters of 20. The first levels bring in one dog at a time: Yorkies, then Corgis, then Shepherds, then the Samoyed. After that the yards grow from 6×6 to 8×8, the Dalmatian joins at level 101, and 9×9 Expert yards arrive at level 201. A level with no mistakes and no help earns three stars, up to two slips earn two, and any other win earns one. The website has the first chapter; the Woofgrove app will have them all and play offline.

Daily challenge

Every day brings one Hard board, the same for everyone. In the app the daily challenge opens after level 20. It starts at 1000 points: a wrong guess costs 150, a hint 40 and a reveal 100 (hints and reveals cost treats too). A won game never scores below 100; a lost game scores 0.

The daily challenge has a leaderboard. Most points wins, and time only breaks ties (the earlier finish wins). The server replays your moves and works out the score itself. Boards close at midnight UTC.

About the cheers

The announcer and the messages you see when you finish a level are there to cheer you on and make playing more fun. Some of them playfully say things like "top 1%" or "better than most players": that's hype to celebrate a good solve, not a measurement. Real numbers about other players, such as your leaderboard rank or "better than X% of today's players" on the daily challenge, always come from real results.