Maggie's Latest

Coming in for a kiss...

As Steve has mentioned before, Maggie is quite an interesting creature. She has more emotions than most people I know.

Since my dog is so vocal and sometimes inappropriate in her behavior, I have decided to teach her some new tricks to make her more appealing to those who are a bit turned off by her screaming and/or growling at children, etc. :)

Maggie has now learned to lie down and roll over on command. These are HUGE milestones for the girl. In addition to her latest tricks, she can sit and dance on command as well.

The funniest of her actions, however, is her "time out." Steven and I like to watch Super Nanny when we have time. We decided to try "time out" with Maggie to see if it would work. The first time she misbehaved, I told her to go to time out; and she went into the office and sat on the futon for 20 minutes. TOO FUNNY! Since then, we have periodically had to discipline her for getting in the trash, barking at people who are taking their evening strolls, etc. Our usual comment is "Go to Maggie's bed." (It's important to differentiate that it's "Maggie's bed," because if we just say "go to bed" she gets in ours.) Apparently she is hearing this a lot since the weather has turned warmer and more people are outside in the evenings, thus causing her to bark. She has now just started putting herself into time out when she barks. She barks and then goes to her bed! It cracks me up! We don't ever tell her when to get out of time out. She just comes out when she's ready. And she must always "make up" with us when she returns to where we are - even if we didn't send her. This usually involves jumping in our laps or begging to be picked up and then kissing us. HILARIOUS!

Some fun picks of our girl:

Playing ball...

Sunning herself on a warm spring day...
Looking for neighbors to bark at...