Yeah the dog walking does sound unnecessary, but it's not impossible that the time it takes to take care of them is more valuable to him than the cost of paying someone else for it. It could be another situation where you can't reasonably get rid of two members of your family.

I mean, it's probably an easy place to cutback, but who knows how it was stated to the reporter in context. I would imagine he probably gave a list of his major expenses (including his dogs' treatment) and the reporter highlighted the most egregious expenses as though he said "I just can't live without this luxury." It's not like these columns (they've become a bit of a trend) were written to be favorable.