Hey Fam Squad 🐾,

Just wrapped up another tail-waggin’ mystery in Pawsburgh! I sniffered out a chicken heist, got framed with my own rope, and chased clues that nearly had me chasing my tail. But fear not, for Detective Bruno outsmarted a culinary crook and saved the day, sans lemons. Who needs nine lives when you’ve got one nose that knows? 🕵️‍♂️👃

Stay furry,
Bruno the Snout

As the first light of dawn peeks over Pawsburgh, where the bark of law is the order of the day, I, Detective Bruno, of the Pawsburgh Police Pooch Precinct (try saying that with a mouthful of Milkbones), awake to the smell of intrigue and breakfast, which in my case, is one and the same.

My partner, Buddy Meadow, is notoriously bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and this morning he’s more animated than the squirrel population in Mastiff Meadows. “Morning, Bruno!” he yelps, giving his tail three laps around like a furry rotor blade. “Heard about the caper at Fido’s Feast?”

“Mmm,” I grumble through a yawn, stretching my starchy limbs. “Lay it on me.”

“A chicken heist!” He sits up straighter than the statues at Pyrenean Peak. “Someone’s snatched the secret recipe for the smoked chicken chow-down special!”

My interest is officially piqued; I pause mid-lick from my water bowl. “Scandalous. And the suspects?”

“A shady cat from the alley,” Buddy suggests with a twinkle of conspiracy. I briefly entertain an image of a feline in a trench coat before we both burst into fits of canine chuckles. Cats can’t cook, everyone knows that.

With that, it’s to work we trot—Buddy and me, with Bentley, our saucy surveillance specialist, already waiting at the door, his stretchy spine somehow conveying both eagerness and an extensive need for a good belly rub. Together, we navigate the twists of Briard Bridge, the air filled with the buzz of barking bobbies and the clerks of Fetch! Toys and Treats whistling as they work.

Upon arriving at the dish-dare-devil crime scene of Fido’s Feast, I immediately rummage for clues. My nose, keen as a detective’s should be, is hit with the unmistakable notes of… lemon?

“Ah,” I recoil. “The citrus stench.” My distaste for the fruit is legendary within the precinct; even the whiff of it is enough to make me want to abandon ship, or in this case, the bistro.

Bentley sways to the scent, his nose twitching like Morse code. “A diversion?” he theorizes, his whiskers twitching in thought.

“That or a very poor choice of air freshener,” I joke because humor is the spice of life, even if in this case, I suspect sabotage by citrus.

But then a twist: behind the Chihuahua’s Chimichangas, next to the dumpster crowned with empty ketchup bottles and dreams, we find a pile of chewed-up chicken bones, licked clean. Near it lies the incriminating weapon—a frayed rope, colored with the threads of past adventures, unmistakably mine.

“My rope!” My tail wags stop abruptly, as dread pools in my stomach like overeaten kibble. “I’ve been framed!”

Buddy’s brow furrows, Bentley sniffs around, circling me like I’m the last bone on Earth. “It’s a setup, Bruno,” Bentley deduces with the air of a hound that’s hunted far more than his share of red herrings. “Question is, who’d want to frame you?”

The plot unspools like an unwelcome roll of toilet paper in a pup’s mouth—dangerous to digest.

In amidst the unraveling debacle, we interrogate everyone from Dog’s Delicacies’ chef to the groomers at The Groom Room, whose scissors snip snip with snippets of gossip. After a whirlwind of wagging accusations and barked alibis, the true thief turns up—a naughty Newfoundland from The Pawsome Pet Pharmacy, making off with the recipe to cure his own culinary incompetence.

With my name cleared and the day saved, our tails wag in sync as we share laughs and stories back at the precinct, the aroma of smoked chicken victorious in the air. I take a moment, gazing at my friends, and think—there’s no beastly bother or harebrained heist in Pawsburgh that I, Detective Bruno, can’t tackle… so long as it’s not laced with lemon.

The End.