Our weather seems to be continuing the lather, rinse, repeat pattern. Yesterday, we had thunderstorms in the morning. This was one of Miss M's first thunderstorms. At first, she was a little spooked by the loud rumbling , so Mom played fetch with her in the kitchen, which then turned into a group fetch and a game of keep-away with Mr. M. Once she got into the game, Miss M forgot all about the thunderstorm. Miss B and Mr. C were never scared of storms as puppies, but I read online when we first got them, that if a dog seems scared of storms, you should play with them and make it more like a game so that they don't mind storms at all. I'm not sure if Miss M would have been scared of storms, but she did really enjoy playing fetch in the house. Miss M and Mr. C then took a nap with us on the bed for a little individual time about mid-morning during one of the heavier storms. It was so dark outside, it made the room really cozy, and we all slept soundly, despite the thunder.

Everyone was sleeping soundly until the cats decided that they needed to make noise in the hall looking for the puppies or us? Sometimes they just make noise inexplicably. Cats...

Today, the weather was really pleasant. Not too hot. Nice and partly cloudy. Tomorrow we are supposed to have heavy thunderstorms again. So today, we decided that we should go for a walk on the beach to take advantage of the small, good weather window. The puppies were all super excited to be going somewhere, and were so glad to be at the beach. We must have been there right after high tide because there was a lot of stuff on the beach for the puppies to smell and check out. As we were walking along, I spotted a Portuguese Man-of-War laying on the sand. I was glad the tentacles were all bunched up beside it because the puppies walked right by it not too far away. I don't think they would have appreciated it very much if they had stepped on one of the tentacles. 
They are doing really well with "Drop it" and "leave it." Leave it even worked on some very tempting dead fish. Mr. M and Miss M both dropped various things they had picked up. So apparently they actually are learning at puppy school.
Miss S is very nervous about the group splitting up when we go out in public. There are garbage bins at intervals along the beach, but they are a short distance away from the surf. So any time the puppies decide to take a potty break, we scoop it and then walk it up to one of the bins. Whenever duty calls, one of us takes the poop to a bin, while the other waits near the water with the puppies. Miss S goes nuts when we split up. She sits still, but she whines and cries and makes funny noises until the other one of us is back. She does it with Mom and Dad, not just one or the other, which is kind of nice. She doesn't like part of the group to split off when we are out in public. She doesn't care at home, but it's different in public.
When we got home, both of the cats were waiting for us near the door. As soon as we were in the house, the cats just ran around the room loose while all of the dogs were out and moving around. The dogs didn't even pay attention to the cats at all. We are really impressed at how well the cats and dogs have been getting along and are glad that we took the introductions as slow as we did.

Today the puppies had their second day of puppy school, and they had a blast. Mr. C usually starts the frenzy when it's time to go somewhere. So this time, we had him out of the crate running loose in the house while we were getting ready, thinking that if he was already out, he would realize that he was going to get to go too. That only worked partially. As soon as the leash and harness bag came out, he got super happy and started jumping around, just to make sure he was going to go, and even though they were in the other room, the other puppies heard his excitement and started getting excited too. So we let them all out and started putting harnesses on. In the beginning, we thought that if they were all in the crates and we took them out one by one to get their harnesses on, it would keep everything nice and calm. In reality, it had the opposite effect. When we take them out one by one, the ones that are still in their crates get worried about getting left home and go nuts. If we take them all out at once, they get excited but don't whine and bark as much.
So, we got all of the harnesses on and took them out to go potty before going to school. Then we put the gentle leader head collars on and out we went. The puppies love riding in the car and were so excited to be going somewhere that they all took turns licking our ears.
In puppy school, we worked on leash training some more. One thing We've noticed about pit bulls is that they learn things really fast, and they repeat them all day long if they get treats or if they think it makes you happy. Half of the time Miss B doesn't care about the treats at all. She just likes that you are happy with her for doing whatever it is, and that she gets tons of attention.
Miss M remembered their classmate Ms. S from last time, and was quick to go say hi. At one point, she got a little too excited about getting her to play, and the older dog growled at her slightly to tell her to stop, which Miss M did happily, still visiting with her. Mr. C heard the other dog growl and got very worried and concerned that this other dog was growling at his baby. so he started barking frantically. The trainer gave him some attention and treats for being protective of Miss M. 
Mr. C is very calm and laid back, but he is very protective and doesn't like it when he feels like his puppies or his people are threatened. There weren't any hard feelings though, and pretty soon, everyone was having a good time. The older Ms. S started rolling around on the floor like a puppy, as did Mr. M. Miss M started looking for treats and Miss B started playing with Mr. C. Once class started, they all had a good time and had a hard time waiting for their turn to show off. 
We didn't get any pictures this time, so next time, we will try to take some pictures.
Once we got home, we let the puppies run around outside even though it was muddy, just to get some of their energy out. After that, we gave them all a bath and let them play around the house before giving them their dinner. It was a full day.
Here is a picture that our trainer took during the last class. 

So, today the puppies had their first day of school. We signed them all up for the beginners class and today was the big day. The weather has been so bad around here, that they hadn't been anywhere in about two weeks. Needless to say, they were all more than ready to go have fun. So when we brought out the bag with the harnesses and leashes, they started going nuts before they even saw the bag. It didn't take very long to get everyone ready, but it did take a while to convince them that they should go outside for a potty break first. 
When we got to the class, it was still a little early, so we walked around for a few minutes just to get some of the energy out.
Miss M was the star of the class and fell in love with the older dog that is in their class too. It's an older chocolate lab that was dumped in bad condition and then rescued by the lady who brought her to class. Mr. M tried flirting with her a little and then gave her owner kisses. Miss M loved the big puppy and gave her kisses and tried to play with her. It was really cute. 
Miss B and Mr. C worked with Mom, while Mr. M and Miss S worked with Dad. The teacher worked with Miss M to demonstrate the different skills we would be working on. We had a really good time and can't wait to go back again next week. I think if it were up to the puppies, we would go to puppy school every day.

Of course, our gangster puppies are already familiar with the idea of stealing lunch money. So when Miss M saw the instructor squat down to take a picture, she wasted no time in trying to take the treats our of her pocket. I think Miss M was paying closer attention than we realized. 

We were very proud of our fuzzy children at school today. There was supposed to be a beagle puppy in our class too, but I think that her owner was scared off by the fact that there were going to be pit bulls in the class. I think that's the funniest thing. Our's probably would have been the best class for the other puppy because our dogs like other puppies so much, but when you are too quick to judge books by their covers, you miss out on a lot of things. Our puppies all really like the other dog that's in their class, so I think they will all do well.

Before we had puppies, I just thought a dog treat was a dog treat. They were just dogs anyway, they wouldn't know the difference. I mean, come on. They lick their own hinter regions. Milk Bone, rawhide, whatever. Right? I couldn't have been more wrong. A dog treat is not just a dog treat. As it turns out, some dog treats give your puppy diarrhea, mess up their teeth, or even worse if they have allergies. Once we brought Mr. C and Miss B home, we started looking at dog food a little differently. If GMO corn and soy cause tumors and cancers in people, why would we want to give that to our puppies? Wouldn't you save money in the long run on vet bills for various cancers and conditions if you spent a little bit more and got the better quality food? I like to think so. Plus, if you give your dog high quality food and treats, it seems to me that their stools would be more manageable. 

So then, what kind of treats do you get? We looked at Petsmart to see if Blue Buffalo made treats too and searched online to see what kind of non-GMO options we could find in that department. As it turns out, there are organic and non-GMO treats out there, but at the rate our puppies were going through treats for training, it would have been better for us to buy stock in a treat company. 
With the first two, we went through quite a bit of trial and error before realizing that we shouldn't go too fancy trying to augment their food- or else they would end up with diarrhea. We started making sure that they had the recommended daily amount of dry food and then gave them a little bit of canned food every once in a while as a special treat if they were doing really well. We also found these really cool 'Happy Tummy' treats online that were supposed to settle their stomachs. Once we started evening out their diet and giving them the tummy treats, the diarrhea went away. 
We were happy that we had finally figured it out... then we tried to reorder the Happy Tummy treats and discovered that the company no longer sold them! Nooooo!!!
I didn't want to switch them to unhealthy treats or give them treats that would mess up their stools. So I again turned to Google to see if there were recipes for dog treats. There were, but I wanted to include most of the ingredients listed on the Happy Tummy treats because they had worked so well. I tried a few of the recipes just to get a feel for the dry ingredient to wet ingredient ratio and then came up with my own recipe. I bake them in really small pieces so that you can give your puppy several treats without filling them up. 
I will put my recipe and some picture of them in my next post. I have to make a new batch soon anyway! The puppies all love them, I like them because I know what's in them. I can even pronounce all of the ingredients. Inconceivable! ( <-- Shameless excuse to quote the Princess Bride)

Sometimes you wonder how well your puppies are learning what you are trying to teach them. You work with them everyday, teaching them things like "sit" and "stay" and "go inside." But sometimes they get distracted. Sometimes, they want to get you to play with them and test you by running back into the yard and looking at you, hoping you will chase after them. This weekend, we had the first test of how well Miss B and Mr. C were learning what we were teaching them.
We went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house to celebrate Grandma's birthday. Miss B and Mr. C have been wanting to explore past the end of their yard into the driveway behind their townhouse for months. Until now though, they hadn't been able to because their puppy shots weren't finished. This time, we walked them down the driveway after they did their business in the yard. We didn't think much of it, but then later in the afternoon it happened. Grandpa was going outside for something, and as quick as a flash the puppies darted out the door. Without a leash. Or a person. By the way, puppies are as fast as lightning- even faster than little kids.
We went running outside after them. Visions of them running at top speed down the driveway and out into the street flashed through our heads. When Mom got past the yard, she saw them about halfway down the driveway casually smelling the neighbor's fence- no sense of urgency. She stopped running and just walked toward them slowly- so as not to make them think this was going to be a game of chase. Miss B looked up at Mom with a big pittie smile on her face. Mom, who almost never raises her voice with them, told them very loudly to go back inside now. They took off running toward the house. They ran right past Dad. They ran right past Grandma and Grandpa without even slowing down. They went straight to the back door and sat down until Mom got there to open it.
And that is why we train our dogs. Apparently, they are learning.
Pitbulls are not well received in shelters. In some areas, they are euthanized without even having any attempts made to find their owners. Training is not just to make your dogs do neat tricks. It isn't to be mean. Training them can save their lives. Training them keeps them safe from people and an environment that aren't always safe. For pitbulls, training is even more important. They aren't always given much of a chance, even if they are the most lovable dogs ever. Too often, they are judged by what they look like, not by how they really are.
We got very lucky this weekend. If we hadn't been working with them from the time we brought them home, it could have ended very differently.
We were very proud of how well they listened. They totally made us look good.
We don't have any pictures of them getting out- for the obvious reason that the camera was the last thing on our minds. So here are two pictures for a perspective on how much they've grown instead.
They grow so fast. The top pictures was taken the night that we brought them home. Notice how they both fit in the puppy bed together with room to spare. The picture below was taken a few days ago. We stopped using it as an actual bed a while back. They only just lounge on it when Mom is cooking now. I think it's time for a new bed.