I can completely feel your pain! I had a similar problem.. when I brought Ollie home, he was eating science diet, and his breeder just left it out all day. I was also told to take his food away at 6 also... so often, Ollie wouldn't eat all day, and I was afraid to take his food away! I asked my vet, she said to mix a little wet food from a can in with his dry food.. and this worked! He ate all of his food in one sitting, the little bit of wet and all of the dry!
As with going out with him every hour, that passes.. my Ollie is 15 months old now, and I hardly remember those days. The best piece of advice is pay attention to your dog, if you think he has to poopie outside, you can notice the signs of this. My husband and I call it "the poop dance" because he starts sniffing around the house, really quickly, and then starts circling. It did take a while, but we are about 95% housebroken on the poopie part, 99.9% on the pee part.
One large piece of advice, when you go out with your dog, keep treats in your pocket. as soon, I mean AS SOON as the deed is done, reward, reward, reward!!!! It needs to be immediate, so that your dog knows why you are rewarding. At first, I used to wait until I would bring ollie back in the house, but I learned that he just associated going outside with a reward, so he thought that everytime he went outside, he got a reward for coming back in. NOT SO! He only got rewarded when he got busy, and I had to do it as soon as he performed... URGENCY is the key.. as soon as I started doing this, it only took him days to get the hang of it.
Good luck, I hope this helps, and I am happy to help again if you need me to
Sara