A Detective Story - part 1

Last week my husband called me at work to alert me to the fact that a crime had been committed in our house.  When I got home, I confirmed his initial report.  Someone had vandalized the wall/support post in our foyer.

Evidence Exhibit A:

I immediately began investigating.  I started with an interview of the reporting officer - in this case, my husband Dave.  He related his suspicions that one of the dogs or cats was to blame.  He also suggested that proper supervision of the animals was lacking on the part of the main foster caregiver.  Since I'm the main foster caregiver, I quickly dismissed that accusation and moved on to the next phase of the investigation.

I felt it reasonable to believe that either a dog or cat had commited the henious crime, since as far as I know the fish are not capable of this sort of vandalism.  So my next step was to try to determine how the damage had been done.  A comparison of the crime scene was made with other similar crimes that have been committed in the past. 

Evidence Exhibit B:

I know for a fact that this vandalization of the kitchen wall was committed by one or more young canines, hereafter referred to as puppies.  The puppies were thought to be safely enclosed in an ex-pen, but the pen was placed too close to the wall, and the puppies tried to dig to freedom.  While their escape was prevented due to the ex-pen, they did manage to remove a nice round circle of drywall from the kitchen wall. 

Since said puppies have since been adopted out, they cannot be implicated in this crime.  Therefore, I next turned my attention to another similar crime scene.

Evidence Exhibit C:

This crime was committed by one or more members of the feline family.  While the guilty cat or cats have not yet been determined, due to the age of this vandalism and the fact that it has not been repeated since the original incident, I believe the guilty party has also been adopted out. 

Which brings me back to the recent crime that has taken place.  From the initial inspection, I am inclined to believe the damage was done by a puppy or dog.  There are no long scratch marks indicitive of a feline perpetrator, and the location of the damage (in the living room/foyer area) suggests a canine is most likely responsible.

However, since the dogs are supervised much more closely than the cats, I do not believe they would have had the time to get away with such a crime without being caught.  This bears further study, so the next step will be to round up the suspects.  Stay tuned this week as I make additional deductions in an attempt to determine the guilty party.

<Click here for part two of the investigation>