Kitty S and Kitty P have been making themselves at home. They really like having their own safe space in the bathroom, and really like exploring in the house. The puppies are practically beside themselves. Every morning now, they run straight to the bathroom door to see if we will open it so that they can play with the kitties. Kitty S is really warming up to the puppies and loves the opportunity to play with them under the dining room table. Kitty P is warming up a little. She doesn't mind being in the same room with the dogs, or even inches away- as long as they don't try to lick her or play with her at all. She's not that kind of cat...
Today, Mr. M got to play with Kitty S for a little while. This was his first time really up close with the kitties, so Mom wanted to give them her full attention in case he got a little too excited- hence the lack of pictures. He did surprisingly well. Then Miss M got to visit with them again. She really didn't understand why Kitty S didn't appreciate all of her puppy kisses. After all, they hadn't seen each other all night. Miss M did the logical puppy thing, seeing Kitty S first thing in the morning- she chased her under something and then licked her, tail going wild. She was soooo excited to see her kitty friend. 
A little later in the morning, Mr. C was allowed to play with the kitties for a while. This time, we got out the camera since we were convinced that he wasn't going to eat the cats.

We decided that the cats were doing well enough to go ahead and put collars on them. So, they are now officially part of the family. They didn't even mind us putting the collars on, which surprised us, and haven't tried to take them off at all. 
In the afternoon, we decided to go ahead and let Miss S meet the cats. Up until this point, she had only seen them through the baby gate because she was just too excited. We were really surprised at how well she did with them. Kitty P even came out to see her. When Miss S got too close, Kitty P just growled at her and she backed off. After that, she would look at Kitty P but give her plenty of room whenever she walked by. Miss S was content to play with Kitty S, and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

Once the introductions were out of the way, it was time to get down to the important stuff: PLAYTIME.

If you weren't paying attention, you would think that the dogs were harassing the kitties, but as soon as the puppies try to back away from the chair, or walk away, Kitty S goes after them to play some more. She is either a very brave cat, or a little slow in the head. We aren't sure which it is.

Miss S didn't really know what to think about this next pose and just stood there for a minute. I think she was expecting the cat to get stuck.

In true cat fashion, after a few minutes of fast paced fun, she collapsed on the floor under a bar stool. Miss S didn't really know what to think about that and sat on Mom's knee trying to figure out what the cat was doing.

I think we are making definite progress. The kitties are still not comfortable with having more than one puppy out at once- it gets a little too rambunctious, but they are very comfortable with one at a time. This whole cat thing just may work. Tomorrow we may try Miss B. Her first meeting with the kittens involved her chasing Kitty P across the neighbor's yard, so we'll see how that goes.

Okay. So we used to think that you never know what you are going to find at the beach. I would like to amend that. Apparently, you never know what you are going to find when you get back home from the beach either. This week we are having winter again, so on Saturday in anticipation of the cold weather, we took the puppies to the beach. When we got back home, there were two little kittens hiding under our parked car. They didn't look like they wanted to run away. When we got Miss M out, she tried to go under the car to visit with them- all we saw was a little gray butt sticking out from under the car with her whole back end wiggling along with her tail. She would have been all of the way under the car had she not been on the leash. 
Miss B and Mr. C have been wanting to make friends with cats since they were small. Grandma and Grandpa's cats really disagreed and wanted nothing to do with them. We don't really want dogs that can't get along well with small animals. Pit bulls have enough of a bad reputation already. When other dogs catch and eat cats, people just brush it off by saying that dogs just don't get along with cats, but if a pit bull catches a cat, all of a sudden it's a mindless killing machine that must be stopped. So, we decided it would be a good idea to try to get our puppies used to cats.
We haven't been rushing it at all. We want the cats and the dogs to get along, and we don't want any of them traumatized along the way. The first night, we kept the cats in a bathroom completely separated from the dogs. Yesterday, we only let the cats out when the dogs were in their crates and kept them all separated for most of the day. We put a baby gate in the open doorway of the bathroom and took the puppies one at a time back and forth in front of the door with the cats in plain sight. Today, we let Miss M spend a little time by herself out of the crate in the same room with the cats. It went really well. One of the cats seems to like dogs better than she likes people. The other cat isn't completely comfortable with the puppies yet. It went so well with Miss M that we decided to try it with the other dogs too. While I was making a batch of puppy treats in the evening, we decided to leave Miss B and Mr. C out with the cats free to roam but with the baby gate still in place so that the cats had an escape route if they needed it. Miss B was just happy to be out without the little puppies to bother her, and she happily chewed on a box and a toy in peace. One of the kitties was bored with the dogs and went back to the bathroom to curl up in her kitty bed. Mr. C was sooo happy that there was a cat in the house. He could hardly sit still and kept trying to lick the other one on the ears. The cat just laid there and let him smell her and lick her. We could hear her purring the whole time. He was so excited and was trying really hard to be gentle. We didn't let him play with her very long because he's big enough to hurt her on accident.
Miss S liked the friendly cat too, but was way too excited to stay out very long. When the cat would get up and walk anywhere, Miss S would get bouncy and try to follow her. She was way too focused on the cat, so I put her back up. Mr. M was definitely not ready to play with the cats- he was just way to high energy this evening. We decided to bring Miss M back out and let her play with the cats some more. 
She absolutely loves the cats. She doesn't understand why Kitty P doesn't want to play but really gets along with Kitty S. They visited with each other for about 30 minutes (under close supervision of course). Miss M followed the cat wherever she went, and any time Miss M would walk away, the cat would follow her. She wasn't very happy when it was bedtime and she had to leave the kitty. Here are some pictures of them together.
 

What happens when you have 5 puppies around the house? You get lots of helpers. There is always a puppy around to help with the cooking. There are always plenty of puppies willing to help take the pesky shine off of your floor with muddy feet. They are very eager to help dig holes in the yard, I mean help in the garden- even though they are also very eager to carry off the new plants that you just put in and then play chase with them around the yard. Of the 12 cabbage plants we put in, I am shocked that there are still 7 alive. After they kept pulling them up, I thought for sure that none of the plants would make it.
This weekend, Mr. M and Miss S found a new task they wanted to help with- cleaning the ceiling fan. Well, OK, really they just were curious about the ladder and wanted to help climb it to see why Dad was up so high.

Mr. C keeps everyone motivated and tries to calm everyone down by letting them chew on his ears. It always amazes us how calm he is with the younger puppies. He is well over 70 pounds and could hurt them easily, but never even acts like he is going to try to hurt them. He lets them chew on him, he lets them pull his collar, he lets them lay on him, walk on him and take his toys without even growling at them.

Mr. C on guard while Miss M supervises the digging efforts. Miss M gets everyone started digging and then makes sure everyone is digging in the right spot.

After Miss M finds crabs for us on the beach, Miss S helps out by stalking the crabs.

Miss B is very helpful at the beach. She sniffs the water to verify water quality. Of course she also sometimes goes to the bathroom in the water too...

Miss M is very helpful by being super cute. She acts as the alarm clock- making sure everyone is awake in time for breakfast.

You never know what you are going to find when you go to the beach. You half expect the usual suspects: seaweed, jelly fish, crabs, dead fish, etc. You don't expect cowboy boots just sitting around in the parking lot. I'm not sure how it got there all by itself, or where the other boot is. I wonder if its owner even realizes it is there. It should have been our first clue that there would be  more distractions at the beach than normal.

We weren't planning on taking the puppies to the beach until tomorrow, but the weather was nice and they were all relatively calm this morning, so we decided to go ahead and go. It was probably good that they were in a calm mood because we saw all kinds of things they haven't seen before.

Our puppies are very good at noticing when things are different. The boot was definitely something they hadn't seen at the beach before. After slowing down to check out the boot, we continued on to the beach. We went a different direction than we normally go, and they perked right up when we saw a very large, very dead fish on the sand. They really really wanted to check it out and we really really didn't want to let them. So we kept on walking, much to their dismay, 
We saw a jelly fish that they wanted to play with- thankfully just one of the big squishy not so stingy kind. Usually we get the Portuguese Man of War type with the long blue tentacles that stretch behind them that will still sting your feet if you step on them in the sand. This was not that kind, which was a good thing since Miss M and Miss S were both licking it before we realized what it was.
We saw quite a few fish carcasses/ frames this time, and a couple more squishy jelly fish. There was vegetation that had washed in that Miss M and Mr. C both tried to carry along with them for a while. We saw several dogs- some of them not on leashes, and a few people. We didn't take a break to dig in the sand because we wanted to get back to the car before the sun started going down. It was in the upper 50's, but we knew that once it was dark, it would cool down quickly.
We paused briefly at the picnic area for Mom to take a picture, and then we were on our way. It was a fun day, and the puppies wore themselves out trying to check out all of the distracting things on the beach. They fell asleep in the car and didn't wake up until we were home.

I recently realized that I hadn't looked at our little point and shoot digital camera lately and found some cute pictures of the pups that I thought I would share as a TBT (Throw Back Thursday) post.

I'm not sure how any of them were ever this small!

Today, the weather was nice again, but we opted to just go to the beach instead of pulling out the hammock. The weather is supposed to get colder in the next few days, so we wanted to make the most of the warm weather before it goes away for three or four days. Ah, Texas winters... The puppies are always eager to go to the beach and we had no trouble getting them into their harnesses and into the car. We fooled them a little by taking them all outside before bringing out the harness bag and bringing them in one by one to put their harnesses on. When they are in their crates and see the bag, they go nuts, and we wanted to avoid the squealing. 
We were having an uneventful walk until Miss M made a discovery. She was doing her normal archaeological activities (i.e. digging big holes in the sand), jumping, digging, spinning, digging some more, when all of a sudden she started shaking something. 

I think Mr. Crab was just as shocked as we were that Miss M found him. There weren't even any crab holes around that we saw. As it turns out, Miss M has serious crab hunting skills. The hole that she dug to get him was about 2 feet deep! We are convinced that she could totally be trained as a search and rescue dog.

Apparently, crabs play dead too. I thought for sure the puppies had killed him when I saw him laying on his back not moving. Then, just as a curious puppy nose got within range of his claws, he sprang to life. This proved very effective as the puppies took turns investigating and having their noses pinched.

After a few minutes, we decided to quit torturing the crab and let him go on his merry way. Miss B was the voice of reason here. She was concerned that if we didn't leave him alone, he would tell the rest of his crabby friends that pitbulls were mean dogs. She didn't want that kind of stigma within the crab community.

The rest of the walk was pleasant. Miss M found an empty crab carapace that she then carried around and Miss S checked out some birds- they didn't want to be friends with her. 

Happy Valentine's Day from the puppy house. The weather here was beautiful again today. It would have been a perfect day to go to the beach, but Mardi Gras is happening again this weekend, and we didn't want to deal with the crowds- especially the drunken ones. The puppies have never seen anyone drunk, and I don't see any reason to start now. So instead, we got out the hammock to enjoy the weather in the backyard. We decided to try putting the puppies into the hammock too to see how they would handle rocking. They got bored and didn't stay long, but the motion didn't bother any of them. They may just make good sailing dogs yet. 

Miss B is allergic to anything that requires her to be still for more than 10 seconds. So, she wasn't content to sit in the hammock. She was very interested in whether or not she could chew on it at first. Once it was hanging for a few minutes and they were told not to chew on it, the puppies left it alone and went about their business digging and playing in the yard.

Mr. M liked the attention, but didn't really want to be still for very long either. Unlike Miss B however, he waited patiently for Mom to help him down instead of just bouncing out.

Miss S thought Dad was a great cushion and was content to sit in the hammock for a few minutes. Well, she was content to sit there until the other puppies started playing an exciting game of chase and she felt like she was missing out.

Little Miss M had her turn in the hammock before Mom got the camera out. Dad got plenty of kisses, and then she wanted down to go play again. Sitting still is just so hard!

I'm pretty sure that Mr. C is close to 80 pounds now, and Dad wasn't sure he wanted to be Mr. C's pillow. Mom was worried that his nails might break some of the hammock strings, and he didn't really look like he wanted to get into the hammock. The others had jumped up to look inside, but he just looked at it from a distance. So Mr. C just stood watch by the hammock. 
We thought it was pretty funny that while we were both sitting in the hammock, all of the puppies just stayed close by. Occasionally they would run a zoomie around the yard, but they would come right back and play close by the hammock where we were. I think that's one of the qualities I like most about pitbulls- the tendency to want to be wherever you are. The funny thing is that they can totally outrun us now, but don't even try to get away from us too much. Even if they slip out the front door, they just go straight to one of us if we are outside, or straight to our car. Last time we went to the beach, Mr. C and Mr. M's leashes got wrapped around our legs while we were letting them dig. I let go of what I thought was Mr. M's leash while I held onto the harness to untangle him. I had accidentally let go of Mr. C's leash instead. So for a minute or so while I thought I was still holding onto both puppies, Mr. C was completely loose on the beach. He realized it and moved over about three feet or so (probably to get out of the way of the sand flying from Miss M's digging activities), but he just stood there. I handed Mr. M's leash to Dad and walked over to Mr. C. He didn't go anywhere. He just looked down at his leash on the ground and looked up at me as if to say, "I think you dropped that." I picked it up and we all continued on our walk. I like it that they tend to stay where we are, and I love it when they follow me around the house when I'm doing something.

Apparently next week, we are going to pretend that we actually have a winter for a couple of days. So for now, we are just going to keep enjoying the current weather. The hammock may find itself in our plans again tomorrow...

I've come to the conclusion that the dogs love digging at the beach so much because they can actually dig in the sand. The dirt in our yard is, for lack of a nicer word, special. It has a high clay content and when it is wet, it sticks to everything. I have literally had to throw shoes away because I walked in the yard when it was wet and couldn't get the inches thick caked on mud off again. When it is dry, it is like concrete. Maybe I should just let the dogs dig all they want. Then their nails would be filed down naturally and I wouldn't have to clip them...
In the summer time, our soil shrinks as it dries up and big cracks form. It hasn't rained in a week or two, and our yard already looks like this:

I can't really say that I'm looking forward to summer if the yard is already starting to crack...

So today, to change things up, we worked a little in the yard instead of going to the beach. We are trying to get our raised beds ready for the spring garden. The puppies think the raised beds are their own personal sand boxes and are always eager to help pull out weeds (and any other plant that happens to be growing there already).

Miss B decided that gardening was boring and convinced everyone else that they should play with her instead. Of course, it doesn't take much to convince our puppies to run around the yard at top speed.

Not everyone was happy with the decision to play outside.

Apparently winter decided to go on vacation here in Texas. It was 80 degrees at our house today with no clouds in the sky. Seriously, how could you possibly be expected to stay indoors on a day like this? (Paraphrasing Ferris Bueller). So, we did a few things around the house, and let the dogs wear themselves out in the yard for a while. Then we just couldn't take it anymore and decided to go to the beach again. Yes. That's two days in a row. But seriously. How could you not? They need exercise. We need exercise. It's a win-win. So, this is what an evening at the beach looks like when you get there early enough to still take pictures.

This is how an evening at the beach looks after we get home.

Mom and Dad were all set to take the puppies to Mardi Gras when Mom realized that the people weren't saying "Show me your pits." They decided that maybe Mardi Gras would be a little to non-PG rated for the puppies. Mr. M was in disbelief when he found out what they were really saying.

Miss B had been looking forward to getting piles and piles of beads. So much plastic to chew on... She was completely distraught at the thought of not being able to go to Mardi Gras for beads.

After the puppies moped around most of the weekend, Mom and Dad decided that something had to be done to cheer the puppies back up again. February in Texas is a funny month. Sometimes it's icy cold, and sometimes it's like Spring. At the moment, it is more toward the Spring end of the spectrum. So the obvious answer again was to go to the beach. By the time we got there, the sun was already sinking lower into the horizon, so we skipped the picture taking in the interest of getting as much beach time in before dark as possible. Even though it was a slightly shorter walk than normal, Miss M still had time to dig a nice deep hole and shake some seaweed that she found on the beach. We decided to let them take more time to just smell around and dig so that we could get a walk in while still staying fairly close to the parking lot. It was probably a good decision because there was very little wind, and the mosquitoes started coming out a little just as we were walking back to the car. If you are not familiar with the Texas Gulf Coast, it is never wise to go very far from shelter when it starts getting dark and there's no wind. The mosquitoes are big enough along the coast to be considered as the state bird.
Since we didn't get any beach pictures, I included a couple of the Pleasure Pier and one of the puppies digging on our last beach trip.

Since we waited until Sunday to go to the beach, Mom was able to finish the little bunny she was working on.