Kids picking up Anthony Cope’s Spy Dog books should expect a silly, lighthearted romp about Lara, who is essentially a canine James Bond. The blurb promises “an imaginative, creative feast, in which an apparently ordinary mongrel fights against “villains, injustice and crime”. But, unfortunately, unwitting kids are getting something far more disturbing than the antics of a dog that’s also somehow well-versed in computer hacking and unarmed combat. The books were published in the mid-2000s to the mid 2010s, feature a URL on the back and an encouragement to visit the site to find out more about the characters. In a sick twist, this URL expired at some point, and the link now leads to some distinctly adult content that’s very much not for children. Puffin, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is in panic mode and has “immediately paused” sales of the series and is contacting libraries to get them removed from the shelves. Meanwhile, schools in England are reporting that they’ve been told to ensure their students do not have access to them, for the reason of “inappropriate material featuring children’s characters”. A West Sussex school contacted horrified parents to explain: “We have been made aware of a safeguarding alert linked to the children’s book series Spy Dog/Pups and Spy Cat written by author Andrew Cope. These books contain a link to a website to find out more about the character (identified on the back or inside page). This link has now been compromised and takes users to an [adult] website with no age verification.” The publisher put out a statement underlining that this adult content has nothing to do with them or the author: “We understand an unconnected third party has very recently taken control of the domain name and is using it to display a different website with inappropriate adult content. This website is not associated with Puffin or Andrew Cope. We are asking people not to visit the website and ensure that children do not visit it either. We are taking this extremely seriously and are acting on this issue as a matter of urgency through the appropriate channels to get this website removed. This is an in-depth and complex legal process and will take time. We have immediately paused the sale and distribution of the books whilst we deal with this matter.” Wrong kind of dogging So, if you have these Spy Dogs books (and its spinoffs/sequels Spy Pups and Spy Cat) in your house, maybe quietly tuck them away from your kids so they don’t get an unpleasant surprise when they visit the site to learn more about the characters. We have to wonder what sicko decided to not only poach this URL away, but host adult content on it, knowing that children would be innocently visiting the site expecting age-appropriate content. I don’t know if this is a crime or not, but it’s certainly deeply gross. In the meantime, we can only hope revised editions are released without the offending URL, as the concept of James Bond – but a dog – is solid gold.