The world's most stubborn corgi

Corgis are none for their stubbornness, but Merlin has to be one of the most stubborn ever.

DM has not changed that!

Here's our day: I get up and give the dogs their pills, and take Candy out. Then I put Merlin in his cart. I cannot take him out then- he won't go. I have to sit down and wait for him to decide to take himself out. As soon as I am comfy again he gets up and heads as fast as he can for the back door. Now I have to jump up again because he can't open the door or take his own diaper off. I help him out and then I ignore him as he does his own thing in the yard.

Then he comes back to the ramp, at which point I am permitted to help him again. Once inside, he wants a treat as a reward for going out. But he lies down in the doorway to the utility room, which means I can't give Janine a treat because I can't close the door, and that means I can't give Merlin a treat, either, without risking a fight. So I pull him through the door, but as I go to the door to give Janine her treat he backs up into the doorway again.

This is not accidental; long before his cart days Merlin learned that a dog IN the doorway cannot be locked on either side of it.

Later, we go for a walk. Merlin is good for about four blocks, which take him about half an hour. But we can't walk two blocks there and then turn around and come back, because he won't turn around until HE is done walking. So either I take the stroller, go the four blocks, then wheel him home, or we have to go around the block or cross the road to come back. Several times I tried sneaking up the alley on the return trip but he figured out that was the same as coming back early and refuses to do it.

I should add that Merlin is not the only corgi I know that will only go on one-way walks. Martha, next door, is the exact same way.

Merlin likes to choose which direction to go at the corners, also.

So you might wonder, why don't I just make him go where I want him to? Well, because that involves pulling him while he plants his feet and refuses to move. Or carrying him. (Merlin is a great proponent of loose-leash walking- if I pull, he refuses to move.)

When we get home he does the door thing again. He will go through the door not ahead of me, but with me, even though he needs me behind him to help him through and close the door.

At least it is good to know that DM has not affected his personality. Or is it?