My dog, Maddie

I'm new, so I wanted to introduce my dog, Maddie. I have made one post before this where I also made some introduction her her. Here it is again.

Name: Maddie
Nicknames: Baby, baby girl, sweetheart, brat (she can be...), deer (she looks like one and leaps around like one) and lunatic (she'll randomly start running around the house or yard like she's done crazy, often times after a bath or when she's told to come in because she did something she isnt supposed to)
Birthday: Sometime in March, 2008.
Breed: Lab/pit (save the pit bashing ) possibly more. You decide from the pictures
Likes: Ice, kong, jollyball, "tomato" (a red bouncy ball) "bell" (a toy shaped like a dumb bell), bugs, walks, rides, eating toys (no kidding, however, now she chews it off, then leaves it in a little pile....well, did, she hasnt in a couple of months. I'm talking hard rubber supposedly "non-destructible" toys not just soft ones, although she ate those too when we got them for her), licking random objects, like walls, and people
Dislikes: People at the door, people around the car, people around the vet's office, small children her size, having toys taken from her when she started eating them (She would retaliate by peeing and pooping in places, sometimes in areas she doesnt think we'd see) and lemon juice
Job: Escape artist (first time we put her in her crate and left, she busted through the top lock and got out. Since then, we put padlocks on, then stopped when she was older, now just leave her in the house and she'll go into her crate on her own)


I got her in September at the Humane Society. She was found at about 2 months old wandering around a fireworks stand and was taken in by a young woman who was about to go into vet school and recently got employed at a vet's office. I say this to provide background on the training of my dog. She knew sit, lay, and potty. We worked on stay, come, and heel through basic and advanced classes. Heeling is still a process... not lunging at people and dogs to play is another process she's still learning... She also knows them all in hand commands, too. We wanted to do that from the start and it was great that her foster mom already started doing that with her.
She's not much of a barker-never barks at another dog. Will bark if she feels a stranger is invading her territory, but it's only a couple of barks, usually a few growls. Dont know where she learned that-never had a no bark collar.
She learns tricks really fast. Can't get her to play dead or role over, though. Shaking was learned within a few tries-wasnt taught by her previous owner. Learning places in the house came quick to her. She just assumed that anywhere on the ground that had something on it was "her" place-the pillows on the ground became "pillows" my flower throw rug is her "flower" and she has two "rugs" she goes to. She has "carpet" which is just the space outside of the kitchen that she has to go to if we're cooking. Dont know how she just catches on so fast-we say it once or twice, she gets it. If we say "what do we do for ice?" she runs to her carpet, under my boyfriend's desk (placed there since she, like most dogs, likes the closed in spot under desks) and lays down to get her ice.
She understands "up" "move" and "put your head down". The last one was weird because we just told her to do it and she did, and now she does it every time we ask.
Another trick we do is hide food in one hand, put it behind our back, bring it back to her to sniff, then she paws at the one with food.
We taught her to jump on command...which has proven to not be very good. She now jumps on random people. She won't jump on furniture or the counter-not even if we tell her to, which is good. She was kinda spoiled before we got her-painted toes, sitting up front (which she still can have issues with if we dont have the crate in the car-we're making a custom crate to fit better in the car now) and slept on the bed, which we caught her doing twice the first couple of weeks)
She loves to play hide and seek-both with her toys and us. She knows her toys from one another and will get whatever we ask her to (although she will get the wrong one from time to time) and she likes when we hide it and she has to find it. Othertimes we hide ourselves and she searches for us. When she finds us, we stand still, which makes her go nuts. She makes a sound-a whiny grunt?-and gets in this defensive stance and often times runs off, runs back, more defense mode stances, and then when we move and go to pet her, she gets very excited and wags her tail and goes in for kisses and jumps.
Playtime is funny/rough on her. She jumps so high she sometimes twists herself around-once knocked herself to the ground. Ouch. Othertimes she races after her toys so fast she will slide, roll, somersault, etc.

She's learning off leash now, but worry for two reasons: Will ignore us when we call her. We tried every trick in the book. Two chances and she's back on the leash now. She also has a tendency to jump on dogs/people, so we dont want her to do that unexpectedly, especially if there's kids because she gets fearful of kids her size, thinks they want to dominate her, I believe.

Anyway, long story, I know. Here's a link to all the pictures I have of her...there's a few hundred-over 20 pages worth. I'm picture-obsessed. And I have two videos of her, about 10 minutes each, compilations of videos and pictures with dog-related music over it.
Pictures: *http://s615.photobucket.com/albums/tt234/silvernpink_butterflies/maddie/
Videos:
http://s615.photobucket.com/albums/...rflies/maddie/?action=view&current=maddie.flv First video made probably in December
http://s615.photobucket.com/albums/...flies/maddie/?action=view&current=maddie1.flv Second video made in March or so.
Have your volume on and full screen may be best.
her theme song is the Pointer Sisters I'm So Excited, so that's why I chose that song in one of the videos.