There are 3 women (1,2,3), 3 men (A,B,C), 3 dogs and 3 cats

Man A is allergic to dogs but does not like cats. His wife loves cats.

Woman 3 loves all animals but can only have one kind because her husband hates the other.

Man C hunts quail using 2 dogs.

Woman 1 is married to a man who does not like her pet.

Man B hates cats.

Woman 2 always cooks birds for dinner, but still has time to love her cat.

Can you figure out who is married to who, and how many animals of each kind that person has?

Let us count the pets amoungst the women.  Woman 1 has 1 pet and is therefore not married to Man C who has at least 2 pets(2 dogs). Woman 2 has 1 cat.  Woman 3 must have at least one pet, but only of one kind. So if Woman 3 is married to Man C they can only have dogs. But that means that 3 cats would have to be split between Woman 1 and Woman 2 and we know that is not possible since they each have at most 1 cat.  Therefore Woman 2 is Married to Man C.

Woman 2 and Man C have 1 cat and at least 2 dogs. Woman 1 has one pet and Woman 3 has 1 kind of pet. Since we have two cats left, they must each have a cat.  Therefore the third dog belongs to Woman 2 and Man C (I imagine it is one of those silly little toy dogs which are no good for hunting).  W2MC3D1C

Man A does not like cats, but does not necessarily hate them.  He is allergic to dogs and could possible hate them.  Man B hates cats and we have no idea how he feels about dogs.  It is implied that Woman 3's husband only hates one of the two species, and since she has a cat, he must only hate dogs. This can only be Man A.  W3MA1C

It would follow that Woman 1 is married to Man B, a man who does not like her pet, a cat. W1MB1C

We have a paradox if "does not like" is a distinctly different state from "hates" with the conflict of "Man B hates cats" and Woman 1's husband "does not like" their cat.

Posted by Eric on 2005-04-26 01:05:04