So I want to be able to put axes labels simultaneously as the numerical labels.
I can achieve that with the following, but is there a better/cleaner way? I can't use callout, because I am using version 10.4.0 for Microsoft Windows (64-bit) (February 26, 2016)
names = {cat, dog, monkey} data = {7,12,3} BarChart[data, ChartLabels -> names , BarOrigin -> Left, ScalingFunctions -> "Log", AspectRatio -> 2, LabelingFunction -> (Placed[Row[{"$", #}], After] &)] 
