“Hey, fam! I’m jazzed for a new mystery! Barkery’s out of meatball treats. Maybe it’s tied to this weird applesauce aversion going on? It’s puzzling but if anyone can crack it, it’s yours truly! Missing you all, Fasty.”

Listen to the story here

As I settled into my favourite chair, a flamboyant piece of upholstery that embraced my contours like a seascape cradles a pebble smoothed by the eons of time, I rummaged through the sweet confusion of plastic golf balls between my paws. It was another morning in Spencerville, and another grand mystery awaited unravelling.

My dear confidant and partner in many a scheming plot, Jim, his white fur glowing liked whipped cream under the soft Spencervilian sunlight, arrived with news that would take the biscuit. And not just any biscuit – a baked treat from The Barkery, mind you.

“The Barkery is out of meatball treats!” he breathlessly croaked, staggering towards the Dalmatian Desert’s outskirts with our pack brothers by his side. The meatball treats – the very treats over which I would willingly follow Jim to the ends of the world – had vanished from the gastronomical map. The air suddenly felt gloomier, bereft of the delicious aroma teasing our olfactory senses with those precious orbs of delight.

I am Russ, or as the Spencervillian doggie tabloids lovingly refer to me, the Canine Conundrum, and Jim’s words plunged me into the depths of a mystery. Much like the delivery people and bathtime, this was troubling, but the sense of a lurking adventure was unmissable, prickling the short hairs at the back of my neck.

As we walked through Pawsitively Purrfect Pet Store, our musing continued. It was here that a strange phenomenon made itself quite apparent. “Could it be,” I pondered, “that an apple sauce storm has taken over Spencerville?” Strange as it was, the aversion for the sauce was universal. Surely, there must be a connection!

My friends looked at me, their tilt-headed canine companionship replaced with stunned silence – a silence often known to accompany ludicrous claims, like a Chihuahua claiming to be a descendant of the direwolf, or the suggestion of slathering apple sauce on a delicious beef brisket.

Upper Black Bulldog Bay was deserted, the usual bustle was replaced with an eerie calm that felt as odd as an overcooked meatball treat. The Pawsome Pet Pharmacy held no clues either; they were as baffled as us. As I trudged with bowed head, past The Furry Friends Art Gallery and towards Chihuahua Castle, a gust of wind whirled through, bringing with it a whiff of curiosity.

The case of the absent meatball treat was hereby officially open. As frightening as it was intriguing, we were a pack ready to find answers. For as long all the golf balls remained piled and ready for play, and as long as Jim had my back, there was no mystery too huge, no conundrum too enigmatic, to shake the dogged determination of Russ, the curious English Bulldog.

The End.