Orijen wins Pet Food of the Year - Again!

Dear Readers,

As you all know...I LOVE my Orijen dog food.  Especially that Regional Red flavor we can only get ever seem to get in limited batches (who knew wild boar could taste so much better than they look).  However as many of you also know, Orijen can be a bit of a...um...a "pain"... to work with sometimes.  Always something out of stock or not shipping or frozen or closed or whatever.  So I was pretty happy to get this recent letter from Clark, up at Champion Foods, announcing not just the good Award news, but also offering some hints about future production improvements.

~Wilbur

                                                                                                                      

Dear ORIJEN partners,

With all of the product shortages we’ve faced in the past few months, we’re all over due for a little good news from ORIJEN… so here it is:

Selected against all other pet foods for its Biologically Appropriate formulations, ORIJEN was AGAIN named ‘PET FOOD OF THE YEAR’ by the GLYCEMIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE of WASHINGTON DC.  The Research Institute is a non-profit independent research organization whose strict award criteria involve an in-depth analysis of ORIJEN’s ingredients, glycemic-response, diabetic-response, anti-aging factors and biochemical requirements for dogs & cats.

To celebrate this latest award, we’ve created new shelf hangers which we’ll send to you in the coming weeks for merchandising, we’re updating our website next week, and we are printing the second award on our new ORIJEN packaging, which should be ready by the middle of summer.

In regards to ORIJEN supply, our capital plans are developed and new equipment is on order as we gear-up to increase production throughout 2010.

Hope to see many of you at Global in Florida, congratulations on all of your medals you won at the Olympics.

Clark Stride

Champion Pet Foods

The FlatPuglet Project - Recycled Dogs Rock!!

I have got to tell you about this great campaign to increase awareness of 'recycled' (aka adopted) dogs.  It's exciting and creative and I know you will want to participate, too.  

It's called the Flat Puglet Project.  It was started by an adopted pug out in San Francisco to help let everyone know how great it can be to 'recycle' homeless dogs and how cool we can be. Yup, that's right.  If you didn't already know, both Delilah and I are adopted.  So is our brother, Douglas (he doesn't come to work much 'cause he is very big).  We all came from different rescue/shelter organizations and we are all great dogs.

The original Puglet and his brother, Dutch the Dalmation, saved up their cookie money to make the first FlatPuglets - beautiful printed flat pugs with big brown, pleading eyes.  They then put the FlatPuglets into envelopes and shipped them out into the world.  People take pics of FlatPuglet in all kinds of different locations with other adopted dogs and then post on the Flat Puglet Project page about the Puglet's 'visit'.

There are a few ways to participate.  You can sponsor a FlatPuglet for $10, helping to print and send a FlatPuglet out onto it's journey.  You can also apply to host a FlatPuglet.

I have emailed the real Puglet and his also-adopted brother, Dutch.  Delilah and I want to host a Flat Puglet here in Plano.  Maybe take him down to Dallas to see the grassy knoll or out to the new Stadium.  Bring him into WOOF to help work for a few days.  There are all kinds of places we could go with FlatPuglet.

Mother says if I give up one bag of coconut chips I can sponsor a FlatPuglet.  Delilah and I can each sponsor one if we give up a bag of chicken-wrapped seafood treats (y'all know how strongly I feel about those chicken-seafood treats).

I am thinking that it is totally worth a little bit of sacrifice on my part to help improve the lives of other pups who need a second chance like my siblings and I got.  So I am going to savor my last few pieces of chicken treats tonight and tomorrow I will start checking the mailbox for FlatPuglet.

Can you help, too?  Want to sponsor a FlatPuglet?  Or suggest some places for Delilah and I to take our guest when he arrives?


~Wilbur

Geaux Saints

Beads = Etoufee
Fleur de Lis = Gumbo
Saints Jersey = Jumbalaya!

Sorry all you Colts fans, but New Orleans had the better food to bribe me.

Geaux Saints!!!


~Wilbur

Splitting The Difference to Make a Difference

Delilah and I just wanted to tell y'all how proud we are of our Mother.

It started off being about Diet Coke.  That's all Mother wanted when she went into the grocery store, a couple of 12-packs of Diet Coke.  This was last Friday morning, on our way to WOOF...

Once in the grocery store, after she picked up several 12-packs of that precious nectar, she put them down.  Yes, dear reader, she put down the Diet Coke which she was craving.  Instead, she walked over to this tower of brown paper bags.  Big brown grocery bags filled with cans of food and non-perishable items.  Perhaps you have seen them, too, in your local grocery market?  They are for the Souper Bowl of Caring, a promotion for the Tarrant County and North Texas Food Banks.

I know...you are wondering what this has to do with us dogs, but bear with me, dear reader, I am getting there.

It was Friday so maybe she was thinking she could make a weekend with less caffeine, or give up a beer or two on a bar tab, or not have chips while she watched the Pro-Bowl.   All I know is that she came back to the car with just one of those cans to which she is so addicted and a big smile on her face.  The whole ride to WOOF she kept telling Delilah and I how lucky we were and that it felt good to be able to do something so easy that could make such a difference.

We pugs were still a bit confused about all this good cheer so she explained.  Apparently that big brown paper bag of groceries cost $8 - money she had budgeted for her beverage of choice.  And after she paid for it, she handed the filled bag over to the clerk at the store who put it aside for the Food Banks.  Now Delilah and I were still trying to figure out how buying food but not eating it could make anyone so happy when Mother explained that not all families and not all dogs get full meals and that someone else in more need would get to eat the food.  Being from rescues ourselves, her ramblings started to make sense to us pugs.

Here at WOOF...we collect and donate dog food throughout the year for the North Texas Food Bank.  I know this helps many dogs who already have homes get to stay in them, by making sure that their families can continue to feed and keep them.  Well this Souper Bowl event is about human food but it sounded exciting and Delilah and I still wanted to find a way to help.  The nice folks at Kroger or Albertsons or Tom Thumb can't really let us pugs in there to buy the donation bags (stupid rules).  And with our stubby legs, we probably couldn't reach the shelves anyway.

But you can!  You humans are taller and you have opposable thumbs and you have dollars.  I know this past year has been hard on too many of our friends and families.  Everyone has made cuts in our budgets already, so $8 isn't necessarily a lot of money, but it might be money that you can't share right now and I know how that can be.


So Delilah and I talked it over and we came up with a plan.  We are gonna split the cost with you.  If you will be all tall and handy and go to either a Kroger or an Albertson's or a Tom Thumb and purchase/donate one of these bags of food, we will give you a gift card for 50% of your costs - so $4 per donated bag.  All you have to do is bring in your receipt to WOOF,  showing your purchase of a "superbowl food drive" between February 1 and February 7, and we will issue a gift card right then and there.  

For more details, Check Out Our Website.  To learn more about the Souper Bowl of Caring, click here.  For more information about the North Texas Food Bank, click here.  For a list of participating grocery stores, please click here.

Happy New Year

Thank you for your friendship and your support this past 2009.

It has been a difficult year for so many of our friends, our clients, our families.  It's not that I think it will all change tomorrow morning...I am a stubborn pug, but not a simple-minded one.  It's just that this advent of a New Year is an occasion to hope.  And both Delilah and I do hope and wish for a truly wonderful New Year for all of you.  Much success and joy.  Lots of love and of course, many treats.  

Happy New Year to All.


~ Wilbur

OMG!!! As if...

Seriously?

SERIOUSLY???


The absolute indignity!  They say it even comes as a disco ball or an air freshener.  I would never curl up or snuggle with Mother again and cannot imagine anything more humiliating than walking around the store with a little pink flower over my...well, my...my backside.  I would just sit there, not moving or greeting anyone, and I would have to learn to walk backwards so I could always face away from people.  A pink flower?  Or even worse, a disco ball???

Check out Rear Gear here and make sure you block the website for ever from your parents.  You don't want them getting any ideas, my friends.


~Wilbur

Merry Christmas Eve to Everyone

Just a quick note to wish you all a very wonderful holiday season.

It is snowing here tonight. Not just a few flakes but bone-chilling, wind-driven snow. I am wearing a red fleece cozy coat and curled on a bed in the living room. The tree is lit and decorated with shiny bulbs. Delilah is bundled deep into her hoodie and curled next to Mother, adn even Douglas is warm in a fido fleece. A fire burns in the fireplace and Mother says we must wait til morning to open our presents.

It is a very good night to be this pug, and I hope that all of you will enjoy similar good cheer with your own families.


~Wilbur

PS: I was zooming around the room doing pug laps earlier when I spied some of the gifts Mother was wrapping....for me? for me? Rubbing my paws together, eager for Christmas morn.

So you think you can dance?

Will the humiliation never end? My Mother has "elf'ed" me, although I must say...as an elf, I have some very smooth moves.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Enjoy Yourselves!


~Wilbur

The 12th and Final Day!

This is it...the Final Day of our annual 12 Days of WOOF & Joy celebration. Make sure you get to come on by before 6pm tonight to take advantage of all 12 days' worth of specials.

Today's special offer is 40% off all in-stock Beds & Blankets.

You don't want to miss this, and if you have your email printout, you will be able to use it for those 'other' offers, too. Stock up on Merrick Sausages for stocking stuffers and goodie bags of holiday cookies to take with you to friends' and family's homes.

Don't forget... 12 Days of WOOF & Joy ends today, Friday December 18th at 6pm.

So hurry up! I am here...waiting...right by the treat jar...


~Wilbur

12 Days of WOOF & Joy - Day 7

Did you check your email this morning? No????

How will you know what today's totally awesome super 12 Days of WOOF & Joy special is?

Better go check your emails.

Not signed up??? gasp, snort and gasp again.... How can that be?

Click Here and get signed up so that you can get tomorrow morning's email. Tomorrow is Day 8 and then there will be only four more days until Day 12, and then it's all over til next holiday season.

Hurry!


~Wilbur

Look at What I Got....

Check out the new sofa chair. Mother says it is for me so that I will stop sleeping in Delilah's pink striped chair. Personally...this new one hasn't been broken in yet and isn't suitably covered in pug hair. But I am working on it, don't worry. :)

~ Wilbur

12 Days of WOOF & Joy - Day 3

5th annual "12 Days of WOOF & Joy" event.

You will get an email from me each morning for 12 straight days listing a fabulous in-store special (the online specials sometimes vary from the in-store ones) valid for that day only. However if you print the email out and bring it with you to the store, you can receive the previous days' specials, too, as long as supplies last. So it really rocks to be on my 'Nice List' and get emails. You can sign up right here if you aren't already on it.


And for today's special: Day 3 - Take $10 off all Human T-Shirts.

12 Days of WOOF & Joy - Day 2

It's that time of year again!
This is our 5th annual "12 Days of WOOF & Joy" event.

You will get an email from me each morning for 12 straight days listing a fabulous in-store special (the online specials sometimes vary from the in-store ones) valid for that day only. However if you print the email out and bring it with you to the store, you can receive the previous days' specials, too, as long as supplies last. So it really rocks to be on my 'Nice List' and get emails. You can sign up right here if you aren't already on it.


And for today's special: Day 2 - Bully Sticks!!! 6" Bullies - 2 for $5 or 5 for $10

12 Days of WOOF & Joy - Day 1

It's that time of year again!
This is our 5th annual "12 Days of WOOF & Joy" event.

You will get an email from me each morning for 12 straight days listing a fabulous in-store special (the online specials sometimes vary from the in-store ones) valid for that day only. However if you print the email out and bring it with you to the store, you can receive the previous days' specials, too, as long as supplies last. So it really rocks to be on my 'Nice List' and get emails. You can sign up right here if you aren't already on it.


And for today's special, Day 1 - Take $10 off all Nina Ottosson wooden puzzle toys