Barkonomics Book Review

I spent the weekend reading my copy of Barkonomics, by Paris Permenter and John Bigley of DogTipper.com. I’m frugal by nature and love saving money, whenever I can. As you can gather by the book’s clever title, Barkonomics is about lowering the cost of dog ownership. I was intrigued and figured why not give it a try, maybe I’d discover some new way to cut costs that I hadn’t thought of yet.

Boy was I surprised. Like it’s clever title, this book is loaded with some very neat money saving tips. Some of the suggested ideas I was already doing, for example, I wash my own dogs. Barkonomics is virtually bursting with over 300 tips and ideas, many of which I have never even thought of. To give you one example, if you have a fast eating dog, and you’re concerned about the risk of canine bloat, the authors suggest using a muffin tin to slow down your dogs eating. Why didn’t I think of that? Instead of spending your hard-earned money on expensive bloat preventing devices or worse yet a trip to your local vet you can simply find a used muffin tin at a thrift shop and spread your dog’s food out in the little cups when you feed. What a great tip!

Barkonomics is easy to read. The information is well-organized with tips separated into logical categories for saving money on: food, veterinary care, prescriptions, training, travel, and more. Curious on how to save money on treats? Just flip to the treats section, and you’ll quickly see a smorgasbord of useful money-saving tips. Speaking of eyes, don’t worry about eyestrain! Barkonomics is published using a pleasant font, and it makes good use of white space keeping its pages from looking cluttered.

I could go on and on, but I don’t want to spoil the book. This book is such a great read, and its pages are full of tips you’ll want to implement right away. The only disappointing thing about Barkonomics was that when I reached the end of the book I’d discovered so many new and clever ways to save money that I wanted more. I guess I’m just a junkie when it comes to saving my hard-earned money. Maybe because they are catering to thrifty-minded people, Barkonomics is relatively inexpensive; but the simple truth is that by implementing just a few of the cost saving tips offered in this book it will quickly pay for itself. I ordered it directly from DogTipper.com, which means the authors, Paris Permenter and John Bigley both signed it. As a fun bonus there are even two paw prints stamped inside with the names Irie and Tiki signed below them, so cute!