diff --git a/scripts/finetune.py b/scripts/finetune.py
index 3d72fb1d9..8d7a18a4a 100644
--- a/scripts/finetune.py
+++ b/scripts/finetune.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ import random
 import signal
 import sys
 from pathlib import Path
-from typing import Optional
+from typing import Optional, List, Dict, Any, Union
 
 import fire
 import torch
@@ -117,6 +117,10 @@ def choose_config(path: Path):
     return chosen_file
 
 
+def check_not_in(list1: List[str], list2: Union[Dict[str, Any], List[str]]) -> bool:
+    return not any(el in list2 for el in list1)
+
+
 def train(
     config: Path = Path("configs/"),
     prepare_ds_only: bool = False,
@@ -169,7 +173,7 @@ def train(
         cfg
     )
 
-    if "inference" not in kwargs and "shard" not in kwargs:  # don't need to load dataset for these
+    if check_not_in(["inference", "shard", "merge_lora"], kwargs):  # don't need to load dataset for these
         train_dataset, eval_dataset = load_prepare_datasets(
             tokenizer, cfg, DEFAULT_DATASET_PREPARED_PATH
         )