Our house is so filled with cuteness and love that it's downright sickening some days. But you can't get sick of it, because right as your about to someone will give you one of those looks, or say something to you, and you melt.

The kittens are still growing like weeds. But they're still small enough to be super cute. Pup2 was feeling a little under the weather last night and female kitten kept trying to snuggle up to her. Our little female is probably the sweetest, cutest, most cuddly of all the pets. She talks a lot in this cute, high-pitched mew that I think she's cultivating for later use when she gets in trouble. Mrs. NFB yelled at a pup in front of her yesterday and kitty got up on her hind legs and reached up towards Mrs. NFB mewing with a question in her voice like, "what'd puppy do? Can I make it better?" Mrs. NFB, like I would, melted in the face of the cuteness.

Mr. Kitten is just a little more cat like with his love. He'll hang out when you're not doing anything in particular just out of reach, but once you decide it's time to work on something, he's there. Mew, mew, mew, rub, rub rub, mew, mew, mew, rub, rub, rub. Until you have no choice but to pick him up like a little baby and rub your face all over him. Then he's happy.

If he decides he needs puppy attention, he will not be satisfied with anything less than being nibbled on or at the very least, licked. Pup1 was trained by Kitty1 way back when she was a youngun how kitties kiss each other. Nose-touches, that's it. So there's a war of sorts between Mr. Kitten and Pup1 brewing. He wants moisture, and won't be satisfied with anything else. Pup1 won't put moisture on a cat because she got beat up for it in her younger days and never did it again. OK, she could have destroyed Kitty1 the day that happened, but she's always respected the cats in her life so she just laid there and took it.

Pup2 on the other hand?

Maybe it's time for that story. Yeah, I suppose so.

BREAK

It all started with a simple enough concept. Grandma cancelled our trip down to see her because she wasn't feeling well. So, we re-scheduled. But the re-scheduling meant that Mrs. NFB wouldn't be able to go along. So it was just me and my Caddy.

Somehow, I joked about taking the dogs and the next thing I know we're splitting them up. Mrs. NFB kept Pup1 and I took Pup2 with me. Eight hours in a car with a half-rat-terrier didn't sound like a great prospect. But, her other half is black lab. Don't ask how that mating took place. You can sometimes see the war in her eyes between her terrier half and her lab half. She wants so much to be the good girl, but sometimes the terrier takes over and the energy comes out and it's on.

But the trip down was mostly uneventful.

Getting there, the first things she sees are these two kittens that grandma and grandpa have been taking care of.

Let me back up a moment. Pup2 loves cats. And not in the way some dogs love cats. I mean she seriously, honestly, and truly LOVES cats. She can sort of say the word cute in this little half-bark way and when she sees cats she invariable says it, over and over again. She told Sonya, the Pet Psychic lady, yeah, the one on the TV show, that my cats are beautiful. Cat's are just Pup2's favorite people. That's just a fact.

Pup2 is also kissy. I don't mean one polite lick on the face and that's it. I'm talking butt swinging wildly as she kisses over and over hard enough to knock over a full grown adult person. When she sees something she thinks is cute, she does her little gruff *CUTE* bark and kisses whatever it is she thinks is cute. When babies are around we gotta hold her back. She'd never hurt anybody bigger than a mouse or a mole (there's another story for another time there), but her kisses can sometimes get a little painful in their intensity.

So, we get there, and there are these two little cute-machines of super-love. And they come running out the gate to greet us the second we pull up.

Picture taken the day we met them.

Pup2 lost her mind. The *CUTE* barks started immediately, followed closely by kisses so powerful they were knocking the kitties over. But the little tikes didn't back down, and in fact leaned into the kisses. I ended up pulling Pup2 back and holding her so that the kitties had to come to her. And they did. It seemed they were in love with each other.

Now it's time to back up on the other side of this story.

These poor little kitties, they'd had it rough.

Their mommy went out on a hunt not long after they'd been born and just never came back. Gramps found her body a few days later and realized the kittens were in trouble. They set up their little kitty shelter they had in the shed by their back door and kept them fed with kitten food, but couldn't do much more for them.

The other cats around pitched in and helped where they could, bringing them mice to play with and eat when they were capable of eating solids, baby-sitting them, playing with them, keeping them busy when they could. But still, mostly, they were alone. Just the three of them.

But they were sick. They had their good days, and their bad days. Their sibling died two days before we met them. And when we met them, Miss kitten was not doing too hot. Mr. was full of pep, but Miss was mostly just sitting around, waiting for something. Part of me wondered if it wasn't death she waited for, or the chance to meet back up with her sibling on the other side.

The moment of first meeting is the moment where things changed for them.

The weather was turning cold, and they slept outside in the little kitty shack gramps had put together for them, or just out on the concrete that had soaked up the sun through the day and so put out some heat through the night. Pup2 didn't understand. Kitties live in the house in the city, and leaving them outside when she went in just made no sense at all to her.

She played gently with them the days we were there, and got to know them rather well as I visited with gramps and grandma. To say the love she felt for them was obvious would be a huge understatement. Gramps started to mention that she was going to be lost if we left them behind. The last night before we left, it was very, very cold. Colder than we thought it was gonna get. And the kitties stayed right outside the door the entire night. In the morning, they were freezing.

Pup2 went out to do her business in the morning, and refused to come back in. Instead, laying down by the kitties and snuggling up to them, providing them with what warmth she could.

In those moments, the decision was finalized. Grandma and grandpa didn't figure they'd survive much longer as the weather continued to grow colder, and they were just too old to start another round of house cats. And so, the kitties would come with us back north.

I told Pup2 they were hers forever now and she raised her head and smiled.

Oh, there were other moments on that trip. The boy puppy that worked the farm with the men that Pup2 hung out with in the evenings and late mornings. Playing, running, having a big old time. Going to the little dive restaurant down by the river and sharing a tenderloin with her. The weiner roast where she downed most of a hot dog herself. All special treats for her since she normally doesn't get human food. Trips all over the farm, crazy runs that she'd never get to have in the city. And a good bond formed between Pup2 and myself as it was the first time we'd ever been around each other without Pup1 there too for more than an hour or two at a time. Not that there's huge problems between them, but it's always different with two than it is with one.

So, we took them home.

The car trip was interesting with just me, Pup2, and the two kitties. Gramps was convinced I needed something to keep them penned up while we travelled. I knew better. A few miles down the road the kitties took turns moving between sitting on my lap for warmth and cuddling up to Pup2 for warmth. That was pretty much it, all the way home.

A trip to the vet once home confirmed my worst fears. They had a very bad bacterial infection. The vet was shocked they were still alive. You can see how sickly they were in that first picture. We got them on a strict drug regimen right away and knocked that bug on its ass. It took a few days, but we got it.

And they went from looking like this:

To looking like this:

Sorry, it was almost impossible to get a picture of them in their healthy, tiny state without Pup2 being in it too. Inseperable doesn't cover it. Note the difference in their fur and the brightness in their eyes. Life came back to them.

They met the old lady in the back room. Mom's kitty was way past her prime when they moved in. Over sixteen years old, when the vet said she had a life expectancy of twelve. Miss Kitten convinced her to come out and sit with the family. She'd lived with us for quite some time at that point. Four years almost. And it was the first time she spent more than a few minutes with us in all that time.

Not long after that Mom's kitty had a stroke and just couldn't function any more. Part of me thinks the kittens got her playing again and her body just couldn't keep up with it. All I know is she was happier in those last days than she'd been in years, and we can thank the little ones for that. They refuse to take no for an answer. They'll smother anyone with love and cuteness until their heart melts and they're won over.

And this all came back because yesterday Miss Kitten tried to return the favor Pup2 did for her when she was sick seemingly so long ago in their world and laid with her to comfort her in her time of need. Snuggled close, talking quietly to her as she ran her paw gently along her face.

Pup2 is better today, but the bond between Pup2 and the kittens is unbelievably tight. I pray no one is ever stupid enough to threaten her cats around her. Pup1 is the better natured dog, and she almost ripped Mrs. NFB's parents to shreds for bothering one of the other cats. She had real problems dealing with the way we had to give them their medicine in those early days, but understood with a long explanation that it was the only way to save them, and so accepted it. Though she'd whine and whimper every day we did it. If it's ever someone she doesn't know trying something on them in front of her? Stand back and hope you don't get any on you. They will not survive.

Pup2 loves her kitties. Can't say I blame her much.

Yes, we gotz lubs.

This is our home. Cuteness and love, everywhere.