Bonnie and Clyde are growing nicely. They are getting into a normal routine. In the mornings, they get to play outside before it gets too hot. They love anything active but especially tugging games.
We are amazed at how fast they are growing. When we first started playing tug-o-war with them, there wasn't much resistance on the other end of the rope. Now when we play, we get a strength training workout for free. Who needs a gym membership?

Their personalities are really starting to come out. Bonnie is the sweetheart. She looks at you with sad eyes if she feels like she's not getting her fair share of attention. As a side note, if you have more than one puppy (or dog in general), it is very important that you treat them both equally and that they each get the same amount of attention. You notice it immediately in their behavior when one feels left out.
Clyde has earned himself a new nickname: Lunchbox. He gets very interested anytime we are doing anything in the kitchen. He thinks he needs treats all the time. A note on this: we have noticed that if he gets too many snacks he gets a little gassy. The other day we could have sworn he was fumigating for mosquitos.

Here are some pictures of Dad at work. When he is not playing with a certain pair of puppies, he teaches people Martial Arts as well as general self defense classes. In the bottom picture, a 6 year old student is learning a technique to fend off a knife attack by an adult. You hear people sometimes say that you can fight for free on any street corner, but they are missing the whole point. If you fight on the corner, it is all about brute strength. When you know a few techniques, you don't have to be the strongest to win or get away. If you know the right techniques, you can conquer the worst attacks. Because of her size, in the next step of this technique, she could break his arm and get away even though she is much smaller than he is. Technique and skill make up for any difference in size. This is part of what makes traditional Jiu-Jitsu ideal for women, who are usually smaller than their attackers. Sometimes it's actually easier to throw a bigger person than it is a smaller one because their center of gravity is so much higher.

I would put pictures here of Mom at work, but it wouldn't be very exciting. I guess I could post some, and then if you are having trouble sleeping, you could just look at our blog. :)

Today was an interesting day. The puppies are settling into the normal routine and are starting to learn the rules and boundaries. House training has been going well so far... Today, Bonnie and Clyde decided to test us to see if the rules were still the same. We took them outside and played with them for a while. They had big-time fun with the water hose. Then, when it was time to go in, they ran from us instead of going inside when we told them to.  They had already taken care of their businesses, but they just wanted to play some more. Needless to say, we can't have puppies growing up to be dogs who think they don't need to come when we call them or who think it's a good idea to hide when it's time to go in. So, into time out they both went.
They came out of time out after a while, but then the next time we went outside, Bonnie ran again when it was time to go inside. This time, she hid under the bbq pit and we had to pull her out. If we let her get away with this at this age, we will be asking for trouble later. It is one thing to pull a little puppy out from under something, but when they are upwards of 50 pounds, it won't be so easy. So... into time out she went. Again.
Next, Clyde decided it would be a good idea to go into our bathroom and poop on the mat. We normally keep our bedroom door closed so that they can't go in there, but it was left open, and we were reminded that they are not to be totally trusted just yet. Bonnie came out of time out and in went Clyde.
Finally, by the evening, they had both calmed down.
Sometimes they test your patience quite a bit. Then they do something so cute, you remember that they are only just puppies and that eventually they will grow out of the puppy phase.

Over the past week, we have been concentrating on trainng these two puppies. Really though, I think they have taught us just about as much as we taught them. Here are a few of our lessons learned over the past week.

1. Every day is a new day to a puppy. Yesterday, you may have been put in time out for peeing on the floor or nipping at toes, but that was yesterday. Today is a completely different day. "Time out? What time out? I don't know anything about any time out."

If people looked at life this way, I think we would be a lot happier.

2. Naps are priceless. The first couple of days, Bonnie and Clyde stayed awake almost all day and were really active. After that, they started taking naps throughout the day. We were a little worried at first and took to the internet to see if it was normal. We had kind of resigned ourselves to having wild puppies flying around the house for the next few months. We think that they were just that active the first few days because they didn't want to get dumped again and wanted to make sure that we were still there. 
They are starting to settle in to the normal routine now. They eat, play for a while, nap, play, nap, play, nap, eat, play, nap, etc. When they nap, we take advantage of the time to clean and do things around the house or take a nap ourselves (on the weekends). Today we napped for over an hour while they were sleeping and that was probably the best idea we had had all day.

3. Puppies use the same tactics as human kids. They test you to see what they can get away with and if one can get away with things that the other one can't. We were sitting outside with the puppies while they were playing, and Bonnie came up and tried to very gently carry April's flip-flop away to chew on it. She got fussed at and had the shoe taken away. Clyde was laying in the grass watching all of this. A few seconds later, he came up and tried to very gently take the same shoe. He got the same rebuke. 
They test you. They try to see if you will let them get away with things that you wouldn't let them do yesterday. 

Overall, we are very glad that we brought them home. They have brought a huge amount of excitement so far.  (Either that or Clyde's Jedi puppy mind tricks are working).

I will be the first to say that I never considered having a pitbull as a pet. I had dogs as a kid. We had one black lab that we had to get rid of because it nipped at a kid who walked up on her when she was eating. Labs are supposed to be super mellow family dogs who are good with kids and other animals. Our lab would surprise us at least once a week with half of a dead rabbit in our yard- the half she didn't eat.
I heard the stories on the news about how pitbulls are horribly vicious and not suitable for pets. I heard about a great aunt of mine who at one point loved pitbulls, but that was before I was born, so I never met them.
I bought into the hype around them and would never have sought out a pitbull on purpose to take home.

Then one day all of that changed.
O'Sensei and I drove up into east Texas on a mini-road trip with my aunt and mother. After we had lunch, we decided to stop by Cold Spring to take a picture near the large Pistol BBQ statue. When we got there, we found two puppies sleeping at the base of the gun statue. They were skinny, hungry and a little skidish, but they took to us immediately. The boy went right up to O'Sensei and snuggled up next to his foot. The girl came over to me and started playing with the bottom of my pants and rubbing up against my leg. We liked them immediately. All of the preconceived notions I had about pitbulls started to fall away.
We had discussed getting a dog a few days earlier and decided that we probably weren't ready for that yet. So we tried leaving them there, but we just couldn't do it.
We packed them into the car with us and fed them leftover catfish on the way back to parents' house. Because we found them at the base of the large gun statue, we decided that Bonnie and Clyde would be fitting names. We left them at my parents' house while we proceded to buy what seemed like half of Petsmart's puppy supplies.
An aside here, I first thought that the puppy bed was a little pricy and would probably be wasted money, but it was worth every penny. When we put the bed down, they recognized it as their's and immediately climbed in.
We have had them for about 6 days now, and we have found them to be playful, rambunctious and curious- like other puppies. We have also found them to be extremely smart, quick learners who are eager to please. They are the most loving puppies I've ever seen. Clyde is almost fully potty trained. His last accident in the house was 2 days ago- and that was right after we bathed him. Bonnie is getting there. She hasn't had an accident at night in about 4 days, but occasionally gets too excited and doesn't let us know in time that she needs to go out.
They absolutely love being snuggled, petted and played with. If they don't see you in more than 10 minutes or so, they act like they haven't seen you in days and want to give you kisses.
O'Sensei was hooked almost immediately. He is a tough guy by profession. He trains people to fight and to protect themselves. He very rarely shows his softer side- hardly ever at work, but I think he has met his match in these puppies.
We decided to create a blog about them and about our experiences bringing up two pitbull puppies so that others who feel as I once did that pitbulls were not good pets can see how it really is to have a pitbull rather than just believing the hype that they show in the news. Are they strong dogs? Yes. Can they be dangerous? Yes, but so can other breeds. As I once heard, anything with a mouth can bite- especially humans. There are always negative stories about the outliers, but these outliers do not represent an entire breed.
We invite you to read our blog and follow our experiences so that you can make your own conclusions about pitbulls. I didn't think I would ever say this, but I have been shocked to find out in less than a week that these dogs in a loving environment almost match my personality to a T and that of O'Sensei as well.
We hope you enjoy our story and will try to post as many pictures as possible.