a) the bark side…
Everything you need to know about the dog-hosting bit
WHAT WE DO
Stuck finding a just-like-home home for your Golden while you're away? Just book your custard-coloured furball in at Book 'N' Bark for a home-from-home doggie holiday, and enjoy your own getaway happy in the knowledge that your fur-pup is in the goodest of hands (and laps, beds, couches et al). 🐾
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WHERE WE ARE
We’re a Canberra-based business, so if you happen to be living your best life in, say, Perth or Timbuktu, we may not be the best option for you (much as we'd love to welcome you to the ACT and show off our roundabouts). Then again, maybe our awesome reputation pawcedes us so much, you're keen to make a detour – a full 360-degrees if you like! – in which case, woof hoo
and WELCOME! 🐾
*Maybe check you're on your own first, eh. [LINK THIS TO BARK NOW BUTTON]
WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOUR GOLDIE?
Treats, but you (read: your Golden) already knew that. Kids (where's that devil emoji when we need it), because what Goldie doesn’t love children? And don’t worry – these kids are all well past the yank-the-fur-and-drink-the-drool stages and ages). There's also a cat for company, only this particular kitty thinks he’s a Golden because he grew up with a Golden (only difference is he doesn't scoff food like he's got a herd of hungry Goldies panting over his shoulder). What else? Well, comfy couches and beds to sleep on (read: hog), plenty of human snuggles, and a wrap-around garden to roam and, er, water at will. Your Golden will be a firm (without the strict bit, natch) part of our family while you are away – and will also always be welcome here from the first stay till fur-ever. Unless he, well, eats the cat or something. 🐾
AND WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU?
This is the bit that’s sort of irrelevant because we're talking Goldies not ogres (and, yes, we know that's a bit species-ist), but child-friendly (and possibly teen-friendly, but we care less about that belligerent bunch) and cat-friendly are the only requests from this end. And, nope, cat-friendly is NOT an oxymoron – our two-year-old boy cat identifies as Golden more than anything feline (particularly when it comes to belly rubs). 🐾
WHAT GOES IN GOLDIE'S BARKPACK?
Frankly, a lot less than you think. No need for beds, towels, dog toys (unless you want to, of course, or your Goldie wants you to). Just food and any medication. You don't even need to bring doggie crockery like water bowls as we have those covered, too. Just leave everything – including Goldilocks – to us. 🐾
WHAT'LL MY GOLDIE GET UP TO ALL DAY?
Your Golden Recliner will be lavished with all-day, all-night attention (bar the odd supermarket outing🤘, of course). Yup, there are no days-in-the-office at Book 'N' Bark, which means no bereft Goldie moping about the house all day (or locked outside in the garden during a stiflingly hot or freezingly cold Canberran day) starved of love and affection and treat no#356. On that note, there will definitely be no starved Goldie in sight, as treats are likely to come in aplenty (that's what you get in a household of feeders). A good walk a day, unless there's, say, an asteroid strike. A garden to play in, pee in and poop in, hopefully in that order without much overlapping. Air-con in the summer and day/night heating in the winter – because Book 'N' Bark is a mainly-inside-the-house-probably-halfway-into-fridge experience. No siree, no dogs shivering in outside kennels here. Well, we don’t lock the kids out in the garden, do we? (Actually, don't answer that one.) (Or more accurately, don't make us answer that one.) (Social services: Just not the dogs, OK?) 🐾
SO WHAT ELSE DO WE DO?
Seeing as you're at Book 'N' Bark already, why not wander out to our garden pod (aka The Book Nook) and browse through our generous array of secondhand books – all priced at $5 (AUD) each, plus postage – and grab something for your getaway, in case there's no woo-fi. So it's sorta like a library, right? Except you don’t have to keep quiet and dogs are most definitely allowed in. Barking AND booking, you exclaim with delight? Well, as far as Book 'N' Bark is concerned, it's two birds with one bone. 🐾
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EH? YOU DO WHAT AND WHAT?
OK, so Goldie-sitting and book-selling don’t have much in common, right? But that’s what gives our tiny business the sort of Apprentice-esque USP that Lord Sir Alan Sugar would be proud of. AND it opens the door to pun after pun after pup. Which you've probably figured out already. 🐾
*Or else we'll keep pun-ning. [link to above]
EXCLUSIONS (HOW VERY MEAN OF US)
We're an exclusive kennel klub, if you like. Just, erm, VERY exclusive. As we are a baby business – ie, still in its infancy – we are sticking to what we know best: Goldens. Which means that this service is, unfortunately, for Golden Retrievers only, for now
at least. And, yes, we know that sounds horrifically breedist and exclusionist and meanest. Please believe us when we say no offence is intended. ALL dogs are pawfect. Just, well, Goldens are, well, you know… (greedy, that’s for sure). Please check in with us a few months down the line when we may very well have stopped being so Canberra-cliquey and expanded our business to embrace ALL furbabies. 🐾
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Ah, that midlife crisis of existential thinking! What are we here for? What’s the point of our lives, etc. Well, we here at Book 'N' Bark have stumbled upon THE ANSWER.
So grab yourself a cuppa and
a biscuit (dog, natch) and read
on for über-enlightenment…
THE THEORY WORTHY OF A SCIENTIFIC PAPER (insert drumroll if one can locate such a thing):
Evolution. Primordial soup. Life. Plants. Animals. More evolution. Human animal. Billions of years. Yada yada. But precisely why
DID humans evolve, eh? [Insert second drumroll.] [WTF even IS a drumroll emoji.] Well, the answer is… so that we could eventually ‘create’ dogs from wolves. That was our purpose as a species,
see (and we dare any erudite professor of sciencey stuff to disagree with us). And the icing on the def-not-choc cake? (Not that there’d be any cake left with this Golden lot snuffling around.) We took it one step further – well,
Lord Tweedmouth* did, at any
rate – and bred the delightful creature that is a Golden Retriever from that lot of equally delightful scruffians.
And that there, in a non-macadamia nutshell, is the reason for you. We engineered the most pawfect life form, – full of wet, boopy noses and melted-M&M eyes and swishy-swashy tails that like to clear the coffee table of ceramicware... and then made perfect even more perfect. How’s that for an existential theory, eh? 🐾
*Different person to Lord Sir Alan Sugar, btw.
OMG! DOGGIE BAGS!
We're not all about materialism and money, you know. Because, well, PARTY BAGS, folks, that's what! Your dog gets to leave with a party bag – let's call it a Barky Bag, shall we – with a little soft toy (because we all know how much Goldies love to hold those in their mouths), a few treats. Possibly some drawings from a nine-year-old but please don’t bind us to that, legally speaking, as it’s hard to get her off the Roblox and Minecraft since the ban. Oops, did we just write that out loud? (Also, the legal team are dealing with that other issue of yore of us not giving your dog back. Oops, did we just do it again?) 🐾
AIN'T NOTHIN' BUT A GOLDIE DIGGER…?
So let's talk money, shall we? (Promise we'll stay schtum about politics and religion, though.)
🐾 THE GOLDENS BIT (please note: not 'The Golden's Bits', as that's a whole different story, and possibly website): Here are Book 'N' Bark we firmly believe that pup-sitting services for such magical dogs should be free. But, well, we have to make a living, too. So how does $40 (AUD) a day/night sound, with an option to bark-ain if it's for a long stay…?
🐾 THE OLDENS BIT: Flat rate
$5 (AUD) per book on our secondhand stock, not including postage. And, yes, that's a real book made out of paper, for any new generations out there. No Insta-Kindle riff-raff in this business.
🐾 GOLDEN AND OLDEN BITS?
Dropping your custard cream with us and wouldn’t mind nabbing yourself a book at the same time because you don't have anything to read on holiday (which is fine 'n' dandy, until the internet connection goes down, if it was ever up and running to begin with)? You’ll get a doggy-discount, woof hoo! (That’s a discount on the books, not the dog-sitting, sadly.)
And returning doggie customers get GOLDIE INGOT points from us to nab a discount on a later stay. 🐾
**We're so sorry we are unable to accommodate your pup right now.
But please watch this space LINK THIS TO MY DOG ISN'T GOLDIE BUTTON
YUP, WE'LL DROP A BLOG – JUST FOR YOU!
As if a PARTY/BARKY BAG isn't enough, we'll also write a little blog for you about what your popsicle has been up to, complete with pictures (real ones AND those courtesy of same nine-year-old). And word of honour we
won't steal those photos of your Goldie so we can pretend he's ours. In any case, they might be useful for you to BEFORE AND AFTER ascertain just
how much weight your goggie has
put un during his treat-saturated stay with us. 🐾
LEGALESE
WE WON'T TRY TO KEEP YOUR GOLDIE. HONEST. HAND ON HEART. NO STICKING NEEDLES-IN-EYES NECESSARY. 🐾 🤞
*Party pooper. 💩
**Let's see if we have any books by the Flat Earth Society for you.
*** How could you?
*** Bet you don't need secondhand books either, right?