Maddie the Big, Black Dog

Maddie is a five-year-old Newfoundland with a heart as large as her bulk.

She is an alpha dog and rules her Endres Park Milwaukee neighborhood with grace and what appears to be good-natured fierceness. Really, she's a lover.

Beyond giving love and protection, her only discernible wants are to eat, lick and smell everything she encounters, especially people, but when dogs see her as we walk and jog, the dogs literally turn tail and run.

But she just wants to be friends.

Maddie has an instinctive need to protect children and sometime when crazed nieces [pictured above] play too roughly, the dog will jump up and stand next to the girls and look up, imploring the girls to be safe.