It's been quite a while since my last (and only, I think) post about my brother's rotti X dobe, Tia.

Quick history for those who don't know:  Tia's a rescue from Dogs Trust, went home with bro and ex-GF in 2000, looked after well until they hit the rocks and brother became solely responsible.  Until recently she was walked for 10 minutes about every 3 days.  Dog aggression issues out on walks, ignored at home by brother.

So, time for a mini update!  The situation is now worse than ever before - At this moment in time, Tia is on her 10th (yes, 10) day of not being taken for a walk.  At all.  Before this stretch she went for a 10 minute walk with brother and his OH's kids, probably because they wanted to take her for a walk - they didn't hang around for anything else.  Prior to that "huge" walk, she hadn't been out for 11 days.  I haven't asked him to take her out since the beginning of the month - if she goes with him when he moves out, he won't have me or dad to remind him, so I wanted to see how much he'd walk her.  Even I'm shocked, frankly.  He ignores her almost all of the time now, unless she's in his face for attention, and often then as well - he'll come in the front door, ignore her and go straight into his room and shut the door to go on the net.

Now, I've been talking to some of the people on the dog behaviour/training course I'm on; two of them have had experience with dogs with issues like Tia (i.e. the reactiveness with other dogs) and they've overcome them, and are being very helpful in trynig to help me devise some sort of idea of how I could deal with Tia's issues, should I get the chance.  This is a glimmer of hope, and I've decided that if it is in any way humanly possible, I want to take her with me and my own two dogs when we move out in the near future.  My dad is all for it (those of you who read the first post will remember he's not been very helpful - sort of "well, we can't do anything" attitude), which is great, we just have to talk to my brother about it.  Unfortunately he's been a lazy bumhole the past 3 weeks and him and dad are at very loud odds at the moment, so I'm biding my time for now!

Anyhoo, that's the situation.  Not much of a mini update, sorry!  I'm trying to check the legal ownership aspect of things; Tia is registered under dad's name at the vet, and he pays for her food and booster bills; I feed her, and keep an eye on her health.  I just have to find out who she's microchipped to - to my knowledge, she was chipped to the ex-GF, but I don't know if ex-GF has updated the chip or not - and if she has, who she's changed the name to.  With any luck she's either forgotten or registered Tia to dad, but I won't know that until I can get hold of her.  Fingers crossed!

I'll let you all know sometime in the next couple weeks what's going on - I suspect brother will be thrown out of the house soon, given the way things are going, and I'll try my hardest to get Tia.  I'm damned if I'm going to let her last years (she's almost 8 now) be wasted in boredom and misery - she's a very smart dog, she could be wonderful with some work.  Wish me luck!

Poor Tia :( All dogs need to be taken out for walks, even if they are not 100% dog proof. I do hope that you can get this poor girl and turn her life around. She deserves someone who cares. :)