200 Bully Sticks

Have you ever wondered what 200 bully sticks would look like?

Check the web address

Just a heads up, I was looking at the stats tonight for "Annie and Paul's World" when I noticed one of the referring URL's (the web address that sends you to our blog.  It's usually Google.com something).  I noticed one tonight that gives you a perfect copy of our blog, but it's a different URL from blogspot.  Keep your eyes peeled for www.statsdone.com/goto/annienpaulsworld.blogspot.com  Just a friendly piece of advice.
-The Mom.

Paul: and my blanket

    Tonight, after our walk, I decided to cover up Annie and Paul with their blankets to help them stay a bit warmer.  We keep the house at 59 during the day (when the pups are home alone).  And when we get home, it's turned up to 67.  We leave for an evening walk, and when get back, the house is nice and toasty warm.

Please ignore me and my fish PJ bottoms. 

     Tonight was one of those nights when we took a short walk and turned around to come home because it was COLD!  Paul must have gotten used to me covering him up at some point.  As I sat on the couch watching a rerun on Netflix, he somehow managed to bring one of his blankets out with him.  When he curled up on the couch with me, I just adjusted it a bit.  Now he's sleeping here next to me listening to said rerun.

Dressing the Anne

As much as we pick on Paul, we also pick on Annie.  I think it's safe to say that she hates to wear any clothing (and if it were up to her, she's be sans collar as well).  Last week, she jumped up onto our bed and decided to make herself at home.  As she was walking all over our stuff, we decided to play dress up.  

SNOW!!!!

     Here in Richmond, VA, we don't get much snow.  As a matter of fact, I say "snow" is the "S" word when I'm in school.  For the simple fact that if you say "snow," every kids eyes are glued to the window and nothing gets done for at least 3 days.

The funny thing is, there's really not much snow when it does come.  Officially, we got 1.6 inches last week and schools were closing because of it.  The Hubbs grew up in the Four Corners area where snow wasn't a problem to drive on.  The dirt roads were throughly frozen and the school buses had no problems getting through.  (In contrast, school would be canceled for rain because the dirt roads would be a mess to drive on)

http://www.lapahie.com/MonuVal_Snow.cfm

Pittsburgh, where I grew up, is no stranger to snow either.   As a matter of fact, they've already had at least 2 winter storms come through since winter started.  

For Annie and Paul though, this seemed to be the perfect snow.  Just enough to march trough on the grass but not so much to cover the sidewalks a make it uber cold for them.  

Where the Bread Was

I've written before about Annie stealing cheese.  With her overall height, she's stollen soo many things from the counter top over the years, I can't keep track any more.

No Mom, I wasn't just in the kitchen eating food from the counter top.

This morning, the hubbs and I woke up, took A&P out for a short walk in the yard to do their business, and hopped into the car for a quick oil change.  When we came back, we threw leashes on them and went for a walk.

SNOW!!!!

We noticed something after the walk when we went into the spare room.  On the dog bed under Paul's Cave, there seem to be crumbs.  I know when we left for the oil change, I put 2 milk bones each in the spare room.

But I doubt these are milk bone crumbs.  Something tells me Annie go to the hearty italian bread we had sitting on the counter.  Oh well, I'll just add it to the list.

The Stinky Bully Sticks

     With the Hubbs being a college kid, we tend to pinch a lot of pennies in our house.  Recently, we noticed on the Best Bully Stick website,  there's a bully stick that's half the price of all the rest.  We were sold and added them to our "deliver more each month" order. Ooooppppssss!

     I'm still trying to remember which ones we ordered (the Hubbs does the ordering).  Each stick is individually shrink wrapped (pain to unwrap) and for good reason.  They smell horribly (I checked the house to make sure no one had an accident).  I'm waiting for the Hubbs to get home to see "what on Earth did we order?" and remove that from our next order.  In the mean time, I may be wishing for a cold so I can't smell anything.

*We looked it up this evening and discovered we ordered the Bladder sticks.  

The Fight for the Bully Sticks

Most times when we give the dogs a bully stick, it ends up like this:

Annie gets both bully sticks and takes her time eating both, while Paul doesn't eat either and pouts about it.  (We usually give Paul a 2nd bully stick so he does get to eat one at some point.)

The other day though, I couldn't help but laugh.  I gave Paul and Annie each a bully stick, grabbed my laptop to get some work done, and headed to the living room.  A few moments later, I heard something light hit the ground (nothing new in the world of noises with 2 dogs) and Annie came out to the living room wining at me.  She was walking fine, so I took it as general complaining about something.  I got up and started to follow her. When I got to the back living room, this is what I found:

It may be hard to see in the picture, but you'll notice Paul has 1 bully stick between his paws, and a 2nd bully stick to the left of him.  Annie, had none!

Manic Monday

I've only got about another half hour to write this post, so I better do it quickly.  Sorry folks, but it's been an manic Monday after a crazy weekend.   So here are some pics of A&P from upcoming posts.

Stella

     Among the many friends Annie and Paul have, is Stella.  I can "hear" Annie and Paul's voices, but I don't hear most other dogs voices.  When Annie and Stella see each other, I can hear both of their voices loud and clear.  (Think 2 junior high girls talking and texting a mile a minute, and you have the voices.)  Stella is a very lively and bubbly dog who loves everyone and who everyone loves.

Photo by Wolfgang Jasper Photography

     Sadly, Stella passed away Saturday morning.  Her family's normal morning walk took a turn for the worst and no one knows what happened.  Ten minutes later, she was gone.  There's a lot of hurt going on right now for Stella's Mom, Dad, and brother Rosco.  And all we can do is send our good thoughts to them for healing.  

     Farewell Stella, have a safe trip to the Rainbow Bridge.  And remember, you're a good girl.

Annie Says: I Like to snuggle too!

The Annie saw a picture from a few days ago of my brother snuggling on the Mom.  The Annie would like to say, "I like to snuggle, too!"

Me snuggling with Mom.

"Mom's silver thingy kept flashing at me while I was snuggling on her and I wanted to see if she was noticing.  Nope, she was totally entranced in the world of The Annie!"

Paul says: Daddy's Picking on Me!

The Hubbs grew up as one of 7 kids, so he enjoyed some sibling ribbing over the years.  Add to that 6 years in the Navy, and you get the picture.  You've got to have a sense of humor.  (Some how, his sense of humor reminds me of my grandfather's.)

Annie's got the sense of humor.  Pull on her tail, chase her around the house, tap her on top of her head, she jumps up ready for more!  Paul, not so much.  We do all the same things to him that we do to Annie, but instead of jumping on us, Paul tends to hunker down.

Wearing Daddy's glasses; spring bunny ears; Mommy makes Paul fly; Halloween costume.

Paul get's picked up and paraded around the house, photographed, snuggled on, and through it all, tends to hunker down.

Dognomics: The Economies of Scale

With Annie's allergies, I've stood in the aisle of the pet store many times looking at all of the ingrediants debating if I should change foods.  The problem I always come down to is wishing the smaller bags were priced the same per pound as the larger bags.  And that's the short version of economies of scale.

I'm sure everyone who reads this realizes that dog food is typicaly cheeper when you buy it in the largest size possible.  The simple reason is it's usually cheeper for a company to sell in bulk and it's therefore cheeper for us to buy in bulk.  If you're looking at switching dog foods, you've typically mutters all sorts of things about the economies of scale either in your head or under your breath.

But it is what it is, buying a 45 lbs bag of dog food is cheeper than buying 13 lbs of dog food when you look at the price per pound. 

Dog Stuff on the Road

Last week, I went to Pittsburgh, PA for a few days during the holiday break.  (For anyone who doesn't know, I grew up in Pittsburgh.)  There are so many foods that I miss from Pittsburgh! So, I pack 2 coolers each time I go up and a stop in the Strip District is always part of my plan.  (The Strip is a strip of land next to the Allegheny River.)  One of my favorite places to stop is Enrico's Biscotti, for both person and pet treats.  Annie and Paul love the biscotti that they make just for dogs: Peanut Butter and Bacon.

It's an Italian bakery where everything is made fresh and extra large (the peanut butter cookies are the size of my hand!)  If you duck around the left hand side of the store, there's a little cafe in the back where you can watch biscotti bake and drink wonderful coffee at the same time.  If anyone's looking for a cool area of Pittsburgh to explore on a trip there, defiantly head for "The Strip"

The Pups: When Mom's away, the pups won't play!

      Any time my schedule changes (summer ends and I go back to school, breaks end and I go back to school, the weekend, or we go away for a few days)  Annie and Paul go on a slight hunger strike.

There's food in the dishes, but no one's eating it.

They tend to either not eat at all, or only eat once a day.  Their Aunt Karen has been known to buy them chicken stock and hand feed them when Mom and Dad are out of town.

Vintage Annie and Paul (I think we had only had Paul for a month in this picture. )

I took a total of 3 days to run up to Pittsburg, PA for the holiday and left The Hubbs with Annie and Paul.  Even with the hubbs at home, Annie and Paul only ate once a day.  They did however, get a bit spoiled with bully sticks!