Gah! Winston, you are so infuriating!

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

Winston has been my #1 guy for two months now. It did not take Winston long to settle in and start showing me his real personality. You all know that I love every little bit of him, and it seems, each day I love him a little more ...

BUT, you can't look at that mischievous face and not admit that Winston has some serious character flaws ...

 

Mainly, he is STUBBORN!!

 

While Winston is as sweet as pie and so easy going 99% of the time... well ok, 90% of the time, there are moments when he makes up his mind about something and just. won't. budge. I mean that litterally. He plants his feet on the ground, confident in knowing he is stronger than me, and outright refuses to move until he gets his way.

It looks something like this:

For example, when we go out and about walking in the neighbourhood Winston has preferrances for what specific paths he wants to take and if I dare even think of taking a different route he will halt, ground all four paws down into the side walk, and won't move. On a few occassions this has scared me because he decides as we are crossing the street that he really doesn't want to and would rather keep walking in the other direction. There are cars coming so I really have to get my tough girl voice out and get him to move.

 

At first I found this endearing, intriguing even. He first did this when we were walking by the apartment building where his owners said he used to live for the first year of his life before they moved to the country. So I took him there on purpose to determine if he really remembered, and sure enough he did. He sniffed all over and led me around as if he was showing me his old patch of grass, the tree he peed on, and then pulled me toward the front door... I guess he wanted to show me his old apartment. As we continue to walk along the path near his old place and across a foot bridge there's an option to keep walking along the canal, or to cross the street, go under another bridge, and come up on the university campus. Well, I have no reason to cross the road and go under the bridge to the campus, I never go that way, but Winston always tries to make me go there. He won't move an inch forward. I find myself dragging him to get him to move in my direction. I really can't explain why other than the fact that he must remember walking that way with his previous owners. It is like pulling teeth to get him to keep walking along the path, he absolutely insists we cross the street and head to campus. So one day I indulged him and let him lead the way as I was curious about where we wanted to go...

He was so happy as he led us through the campus, and down a particular street. We came to an intersection and I tied to cross and he refused. I tried to go right, he refused. Yep, Winston wanted us to make a left. So left we went. I tried to make another turn, and nope, he wanted to keep going.  Eventually I had to give up as we were getting far from home, so I insisted we turn around and after a five minute battle of the wills he gave up and followed me. But to this day I can't help but wonder where he was going. I thought about asking his previous owners out of curiosity, but I really don't want to keep in touch with them. I be they had a friend who lived that way that they used to visit.

Anyway, all this to say, it is getting cold outside and when a doodle mom wants to go home and warm up, it is really frustrating when a big ol' 75lbs doodle insists that it is not time to go home yet. I have been very patient with this behaviour as I have a soft spot in my heart for this sweet guy. If it were Sophie Bear, mom would be laying down the law. But now I've spoiled him, indulged him one too many times, and now I have to play battle of the wills everytime I want to turn around and go home.

Oh Winston, I love you so much, but mom's don't have fur coats to keep us warm. I can't wait to get a house with a backyard for the doodles. Winter will be so much easier then...

[Becka]

"I guess he wanted to show me his old apartment"--LOL!