What each Logic Dogs clue means, what it rules out, and when it's most useful.
Logic Dogs puzzles use more than two dozen kinds of clue. Each can appear in two forms: an icon clue (pictures and symbols, the default) and a story clue (a sentence like “The tuba music is not at an edge”, turned on in Settings). They mean exactly the same thing. This guide uses the story wording and the location names Park, Beach, Trail, Lake, Snow, and Farm, which run left to right. A 4x4 puzzle stops at the Lake.
These clues talk about a single item. They're the easiest to use, so apply them first.
“The akita is at the Park.” Icon form: an item with a column number.
A direct placement. Place it and cross the Park off for every other dog. “At the leftmost location” and “at the rightmost location” work the same way.
“The carrot patch is not at the farm.”
Removes one square. Weak on its own, but these often finish off an item that has only two options left. “Not first” and “not last” are the most common versions.
“The tuba music is not at an edge.”
Rules out the first and last locations. In a 4x4 puzzle that leaves just the Beach or the Trail, which halves the options in one go.
“The hamburger stand is at the Beach or the Park.”
Cross off every other location. Once either of the two is filled by another junk food, the hamburger is placed. Watch for two of these clues in the same category naming the same pair of locations: then those two items own both spots, and everything else in that category is ruled out there.
“The clarinet music is at the park, trail, or snow.” (odd positions 1, 3, 5)
Odd locations are the Park, Trail, and Snow; even ones are the Beach, Lake, and Farm. This removes half the grid for that item.
“The donut stand and the pepper patch are at the same location.” Story clues often phrase these naturally: “The dog playing soccer likes to eat french fries.”
The two items are glued together. From now on, any location ruled out for one is ruled out for the other. That makes these clues stronger as the puzzle goes on. Keep a mental list of linked pairs.
“The flute could not be heard at the ping pong game.”
Only useful once one of the two is placed: then the other is crossed off that location. Revisit these after each placement.
“The french fries stand is left of the golden retriever.”
Anywhere to the left, not necessarily adjacent. Immediately, the first item can't be at the last location and the second can't be at the Park. As the puzzle fills in, it gets sharper: if the golden retriever can only be at the Beach, the fries must be at the Park.
“The ping pong game is next to the akita.”
Directly beside, on either side. If one item is at an end, the other is placed immediately (there's only one neighbor). Otherwise it leaves two candidates.
“The golden retriever is not next to the cosmo garden.”
Once one item is placed, cross off both of its neighbors for the other item. Note that the two items could share a location; “not next to” only rules out the neighbors.
“The turnip patch and the sheltie are at symmetric positions around the center.”
Mirror images: Park pairs with the last location, Beach with the second-to-last, and so on. Place one and the other is placed too. In a 6x6, the pairs are Park–Farm, Beach–Snow, and Trail–Lake.
“The akita and the tuba music are at opposite ends.”
One is at the Park and the other at the last location. You only need one more fact to place both.
“The akita and the hockey game have one location between them.”
Exactly two apart (Park and Trail, Beach and Lake...) or, for “two locations between”, exactly three apart. In a 4x4 puzzle, “two locations between” forces the items to the Park and the Lake.
“The soccer game and the cattle dog are at most 2 locations apart.”
“At most” keeps the items close together; “at least” pushes them apart. Once one item is placed, these clues cross off a whole band of locations for the other. “At least 3 apart” in a 4x4 is the same as “at opposite ends”.
These are the hardest clues and usually appear in Hard puzzles. They rarely help at the start; save them until a few items are placed.
“The tennis game is between the iris garden and the turnip patch.”
The middle item is somewhere strictly between the other two, which can be in either order. Right away, the middle item can't be at either end.
“The akita is left of the guitar music, is left of the hockey game.”
A chain. The first item can't be in the last two locations, and the last item can't be in the first two. In a 4x4, this nearly pins all three items.
“The pizza stand is equidistant from the akita and the poppy garden.”
The pizza is exactly halfway between the other two, which are at different locations. So the pizza can't be at an end, and the outer two must be an even number of locations apart (Park and Trail, Beach and Lake, Park and Snow...).
“The akita is closer to the guitar music than to the hockey game.”
Compare distances from the first item. These are best used for checking: when an item has two candidates left, test each one against the clue.
A few clues use the shape of the grid itself, treating categories as rows stacked top to bottom.
“The akita and the dahlia garden are diagonally adjacent.”
The two items are in neighboring rows and neighboring columns, like a bishop's single step. Since the rows are fixed by category, this works out to “next to” for those two items.
“The akita and the flute music are at knight's move distance.”
An L-shape, as in chess: two rows and one column, or one row and two columns. Check how far apart the two categories' rows are. If the rows are adjacent, the items are two locations apart. If the rows are two apart, the items are next to each other.
Tip: when you're stuck, it's almost always a pair or three-item clue you haven't re-read since the last placement. Go down the list and re-check each unstruck clue against the current grid.
Ready to practice? Play today's puzzles on the home page, or browse the archive, where every walkthrough shows exactly which clue each deduction comes from. New to logic grids? Start with how to solve logic grid puzzles.