Sometimes the manifestations of canine stubbornness can be sort of startling. Certainly, all of us have things that we would rather not do, however, my dog Cami seems to be turning stubbornness into some type of art form.
In life, we all encounter forks in the road. Choices must be made as to which direction one will take. Because Cami is a willful dog, she has to be leashed. So wherever I go she goes. Or wherever she goes I must go. She really doesn’t like it, so she finds new and more creative ways to be stubborn while on a leash.
We live in a forest, so the opportunity for the dog and leash to get tangled up in trees is ever present, especially if you have a long retractable leash. Plus, Cami likes her privacy when she relieves herself, so she tends to go behind trees for her personal moments.
Unfortunately, running behind the nearest tree combined with a long leash often means going through 15 feet of tangled forest. The worst part is that given the choice of returning to the trail by coming back out the way she came, or by going through a different part of tangled forest, Cami steadfastly refuses to go back out the way she came.
No amount of saying “no Cami” and/or tugging on the leash will deter that animal from her stubborn need to tangle as much leash into the trees as possible. You can see the willful gleam in her eye as she realizes how long it’s going to take us to extricate the leash from the branches.
Today, I actually caught her on one side of the tree and forcibly moved her to the other side. She was seriously annoyed. But I have choices too. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from living with that stubborn dog, someone has to be alpha and it had better be me.