SOLVED. Children’s chapter book (mystery?) about a boy and a dog. Illustrated cover. Read 2010s. Audition for commercial but maybe not? Spoilers (?). {s]

[Darcey]

Hi! So, first off, I think the cover was blue/teal or maybe yellow. It was bright, I think, and definitely illustrated. If I remember correctly (not saying I do lol), the title was really big and there was a boy, a dog (a Dalmatian maybe?), and maybe a magnifying glass. The dog and boy’s eyes were really big I think. I read it as an ebook. It was a mystery, I think, though I don’t really remember what the mystery was. It was about a boy (later elementary school I think) and his dog and I think they enter a dog show? Or maybe they’re auditioning for a commercial or something? I think it was an audition for a commercial. At the beginning he saw an ad for it in a magazine/newspaper/on a dog food bag (I’m leaning toward that last option now that I think about it). Also, he had a teenage sister who was kind of the typical teenage girl. The boy was really smart. Oh and his mom wouldn’t let him or his sister say the word “hate” so they always said “strongly dislike”. The local eye doctor was one of the judges for this audition or whatever. The main boy was friends with a girl and she was maybe helping with the mystery. I remember she has these big sunglasses (possibly pink) she just got that she really liked. The boy taught the dog to answer the phone (it may or may not have been a cell phone). The girl helped him teach the dog by putting peanut butter on the phone. I don’t think the boy’s mom was happy he taught him (the dog) that. Near the end, the girl’s sunglasses break and she gets glass in her eye and the dog answers the phone when she calls because no one was around and the eye doctor/judge helps her. I think the boy gets some sort of reward because his dog alerted everyone that the girl needed help. For some reason I’m thinking that the dog’s name might have been Rhino or something, and there might have been a character named Harold/Arnold (but that might be a different book). I read this in the mid to late 2010s *I think* but it might have been published earlier. I think it was in a series but I don’t think they were all about the same character.

[Ayshe]

Dolby and the Woof-Off maybe?

[Darcey]

That might be it. It looks about right but it’s older than I thought it was! I guess I never checked. The phrase “woof-off” is suddenly incredibly familiar so that’s probably what it was. The longer I think about it the more I think that’s it.

[Kris]

Darcey, I see your topic header is marked Solved. Glad you found your book.

Dolby and the Woof-Off (book 3) of the Oliver Dibbs series by Barbara Steiner - Ayshe's find.