Brian has fourteen pets. All of his pets are cats and dogs. Brian has four more cats than dogs. How many dogs does he have?

I think the way to solve this problem is to "guess and check". I would do the guessing in some order and write down what I have done to keep track.

There are fourteen pets and more cats than dogs so my first guess might be 8 cats. If there are 8 cats there must be 6 dogs. Here is the way I would keep track.

Now try 9 cats, then 10 cats,... until you have a difference of 4.