Site experiment · first seen May 13, 2026

Dogtor’s Hidden Portal

There is a small dog next to the blog title. Click it, choose a fruit, and it may let you through. The joke also works with a keyboard, recovers cleanly after refresh, and asks before using precise location.

Dog-shaped clue Four fruit choices Refresh recovery Location consent
Look for the dog Download reproduction MD
Illustrated corgi giving a playful sideways glance
The visible clue. The destination remains part of the discovery. Public source image · first published May 13, 2026 · 1024×1024 · viewport and theme not applicable
Why

I wanted to reward curious readers without making the blog depend on solving a puzzle.

What

A dog-shaped clue opens a four-fruit gate, with truthful feedback for every choice.

What changed

A brittle passphrase became visible fruit choices, then gained reliable recovery and explicit location consent.

Why hide a door at all?

The first version was a tiny dog-triggered passphrase dialog beside the blog title. I replaced the brittle answer with four visible fruits, made every response truthful, and kept the whole joke optional. Anyone who ignores the dog still gets the complete blog.

What the visitor experiences

  1. Notice the clue

    The dog beside the blog title looks just out of place enough to invite a click. Readers who pass it by lose nothing.

  2. Choose a fruit

    The clue opens a keyboard-accessible dialog with four visible fruits. Every choice gets an honest response.

  3. Recover cleanly

    Escape and Close return focus to the dog. A successful choice survives refresh and back navigation in the same tab.

  4. Ask before precision

    The experience starts with approximate information. Precise location needs an explicit yes, and saying no still leaves the journey usable.

Full technical revision record
  1. ClueAdded the dog trigger, access dialog, private page shell, and illustrated clue.
  2. GlobeAdded the globe and image-gallery experience behind the gate.
  3. FruitReplaced the brittle passphrase with four visible fruit choices and truthful confirmation.
  4. RecoveryImproved focus recovery, session persistence, direct-entry guidance, and precise-location consent.

Exact source-commit links stay out of this public case study because those diffs also name the private route. The dated, visitor-visible behavior is enough to explain the evolution without weakening the discovery boundary.

Credit

The visible dog art is the clue. The globe’s public Earth texture is credited to NASA Earth Observatory inside the experience.