Our baby puppy Roxy, isn’t exactly a puppy anymore; she’s actually considered an adult dog. Her small size and interesting mental state keep me thinking of her as a puppy, but she’s not. So in reality, it should seem a bit odd that I purchased a puppy starter kit in the first place, and even stranger that I purchased 5 of them. Excessive? Possibly. 😉

I ran into PetSmart the other day to grab a bag of dog food since we were running low and I had a coupon for $3 off that was about to expire. So I’m at PetSmart looking at the food and notice a 12 pound bag of her food is $31.99. I didn’t ever think to check for larger bags because she is so small, it just didn’t cross my mind. We normally just buy the 4 pound bag, which is $16.99. Already, I felt like such a dumb@ss for not looking into this. For less than the price of two 4 pound bags, I could get 3 times as much dog food. DUH!

If you are a numbers person, it looks like this:

4 pound bag $16.99—price per pound $4.25
12 pound bag $31.99—price per pound $2.67

Since I normally have a $3 off coupon to use, it would look more like this:

4 pound bag $16.99 (minus coupon) = $13.99—price per pound $3.50
12 pound bag $31.99 (minus coupon) = $28.99—price per pound $2.42

If you have a pet, you can go to the website for the pet food you buy and sign-up for their newsletter or whatever thing they have. Most times, they will you send you coupons in your email or allow you to print them online. It’s just a quick and easy way to help you save a little money on pets, since pets can get so expensive. Also, you can Get free printable coupons now from Coupons.com, just about every time I print coupons from them, there is some kind of pet related coupon available.

Puppy Starter Kits

So I was waiting in line to check out at PetSmart, with the 12 pound bag of dog food, when something caught my eye. It’s strange how the word FREE always seems to catch my attention, I just love free stuff. It said “Free vouchers for products & services worth over $130,” and the price was $19.99. The fact that they were charging 20 bucks for it made me curious, so I grabbed it and started looking. Here’s what it said:

THIS KIT INCLUDES VOUCHERS FOR:

• FREE Bag of Speciality Puppy Food (up to $15)
• FREE 1-Hour Puppy Orientation Seminar
• FREE Puppy Bath, Brush & More
• FREE Banfield Veterinary Consultation
• FREE Doggie Day Camp Visits (2 sessions – new campers only)
• FREE KONG Ziggie Treat
• And many other valuable coupons

Free dog food, grooming and dog treat…oh my! That was pretty much all I was interested in, I don’t even know what a puppy orientation seminar is. Grooming can get expensive, so we usually wait a long time between appointments to save money. I checked the back of the packet and saw that Roxy’s dog food, Wellness, was one of the participating brands included in the free dog food voucher. SCORE!

Back to reality, Roxy isn’t a puppy anymore so her grooming is much more expensive for the same services. She is still the size of a puppy, she’s only 6 pounds. Since I hate to give up on a great deal, I asked the cashier if I could still use the grooming coupon for the same service even though our dog isn’t a puppy anymore. I explained that she’s still really small and looks like a puppy. CHA CHING! She said it would still work and we could use it anyway, I was so excited. I grabbed 5 of them. At $19.99 each, it came to $99.95 for 5 Puppy Starter Kits—but it would more than pay for itself.

When I got home and finally opened one of the Puppy Starter Kits, they were wrapped in cellophane, I started to worry a bit. The biggest seller for me was the free grooming, since it would cost us more than the price of the kit in the first place. On the free Puppy Bath, Brush & More coupon, it says “Puppy must be between 8 weeks and 5 months old.” WTF? I was so upset and started thinking I should go right back and return all of the Puppy Starter Kits.

I decided that I will keep them and attempt to use them anyway because I was told that I could. The main reason, aside from the principle of the matter, is that it won’t actually cost them any money. Roxy is pretty much the same size now as she was at 5 months, maybe only a pound or two bigger. So the grooming will take the same amount of time to do, and use just about the same amount of supplies. If it was going to actually cost them financially, then I’d probably just return them all instead. Am I being awful? Maybe, I guess I won’t know until I try to use one. Since there weren’t actually any exclusions on the package itself and the girl said it was okay, I’m hoping it will work out.

All of the coupons and vouchers inside the puppy package are good until January 31, 2013 and can only be used 1 per transaction. The neat thing about the dog food voucher is that you can either get a free bag up to $15, or you can get $15 off if the price exceeds the amount. So I could either pair up a manufacturer coupon ($3 off) with the PetSmart free dog food voucher and get the 4 pound bags for free OR I could pair them up and get the 12 pound bags for $13.99 each. If the expiration date on the dog food is a ways off, I’ll probably go for the 12 pound bags and let the savings carry over to 2013.

My projected savings:

Dog food $15 x 5 kits = $75.00
Grooming $30 x 5 kits = $150.00
Dog treats $1 x 5 kits = $5.00

Total $230.00 – $99.95 (cost of 5 kits) = $130.05

I’m not sure if we really need any of the other coupons or if things will turn out the way I want, so we’ll see. I wish they would have had these Puppy Starter Kits when we first got Roxy, it would have been a great way to save money. The free dog food only applies to certain brands, but they are on their website when you look at the Puppy Starter Kits, which can be purchased online and include a bit more details than the package does in the store. You can also sign up and get over $100 in coupons on the PetSmart website, so that’s pretty cool too.