How Doguesser works
One photo. Six words. The breed name sits underneath, blanked out, and your guesses are what open it up.
- Read the dog firstCoat, ears, muzzle and size narrow the field before you type a single letter.
- Type any five-letter wordIt doesn't have to relate to dogs. It's a probe: you're testing which letters the breed name contains.
- Watch the name fill inEvery letter your word shares with the breed turns gold and appears below the photo. Six guesses, then the answer is revealed.
Guessing well is a mix of two skills. The first is visual: telling a Malinois from a German Shepherd, or a Cardigan Corgi from a Pembroke. The second is a letter game: choosing words that cover as much of the alphabet as possible instead of repeating letters you have already tested.
Three habits of high scorers
Open wide, then narrow
Your first word should test five letters you have no information about. Words like hound, trail or slice spread across vowels and common consonants. Save clever guesses for later, once the shape of the name is visible.
Count the slots before you guess
The blanks tell you how many words the name has and how long each one is. Two blocks of five and eight letters rules out half the field immediately, and a single short block usually means a one-word breed such as Beagle, Vizsla or Saluki.
Look at the second photo
Every breed in the game has dozens of photographs behind it. If the first one is a puppy curled on a sofa, ask for another: an adult standing in profile gives away far more about build and coat.
The letters that appear most often in dog breed names are R, E, T, N, A, O, S, I, L and H. That is not a coincidence — a large share of breeds end in terrier, hound, retriever, spaniel or shepherd.
Breeds you'll meet
The game draws from more than a hundred breeds and varieties, from household names to dogs most people have never seen.
See the full breed list and how to tell the lookalikes apart →
Or open your Dogdex to see which ones you've already collected →
Common questions
Is Doguesser free to play?
Yes. No account, no download, no cost. It runs in any modern browser on phone, tablet or desktop.
Is there a new puzzle every day?
The daily breed changes at midnight and is the same for everyone, so scores are comparable. Free play gives you unlimited random breeds whenever six guesses aren't enough for one day.
Why do my guesses have to be real words?
Because otherwise you could type AEIOU and sweep the board. Real words keep the puzzle a puzzle. Roughly two thousand common five-letter words are built in, and anything outside that is checked against a dictionary.
Where do the photos come from?
All photographs are served by the Dog CEO API, an open image collection covering more than a hundred breeds. Doguesser hosts none of them.
How is my streak saved?
In your browser's local storage, on your device. Nothing is uploaded, and clearing your browser data resets it.
Are the breed names in American or British spelling?
American, following the naming used by the photo source — so it's Pekingese and Saint Bernard rather than regional variants.
Photo credits
Doguesser is built on the Dog CEO API, a free open-source collection of dog photographs maintained for developers. The game would not exist without it.