Dog Man Reading Order: Dav Pilkey's Complete Series Guide
June 5, 2026
Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man is a genuine publishing juggernaut — graphic novels that routinely top the charts and turn reluctant readers into book lovers. With the 2025 DreamWorks film bringing in a whole new wave of fans, parents everywhere are asking the same thing: what order do you read them in?
The complete reading order
- Dog Man (2016)
- Dog Man Unleashed (2016)
- A Tale of Two Kitties (2017)
- Dog Man and Cat Kid (2017)
- Lord of the Fleas (2018)
- Brawl of the Wild (2018)
- For Whom the Ball Rolls (2019)
- Fetch-22 (2019)
- Grime and Punishment (2020)
- Mothering Heights (2021)
- Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea (2023)
- The Scarlet Shedder (2024)
New titles continue to arrive, so treat the latest as the current front of the series.
Does order matter?
For the most part, each Dog Man book tells a self-contained, gloriously silly story — so a child can enjoy almost any of them on their own. But there’s an ongoing emotional throughline (Dog Man, Petey the cat, and his clone “kitten” Li’l Petey grow and change across the books), so reading in order gives the funniest jokes and the most heart.
How it connects to Pilkey’s other series
Dog Man actually originates inside another series: the heroes of Captain Underpants — George and Harold — are presented as the comic’s young creators. You don’t need to read Captain Underpants first, but fans enjoy the connection.
The spin-off Cat Kid Comic Club follows Li’l Petey teaching a class of baby frogs to make their own comics. It’s lighter on plot and heavy on creativity — a natural next step once you’ve finished Dog Man.
Why it works
Pilkey writes for exactly the kids the school system often loses: the wigglers, the doodlers, the ones who think reading is boring. The result is funny, fast, secretly tender, and unapologetically pro-kindness. If you have a reluctant reader, this is the series most likely to flip the switch.