[yorkie50505050]

First of all, I absolutely love my dog, but I'm at the end of my rope. He is a 3 year old Yorkie that is very lovable but has ended up having some very problematic health issues which makes loving him much harder. When he was one he started having severe environmental allergies and started picking at his skin. He would get recurring infections. It wasn't too bad at first, but then he became completely miserable. We got him on oral steroids (temeril-p) which worked for awhile. Then he lost half of his hair and the drugs stopped working and he was just as miserable as he was at the start. We then got him a prescription for a new drug Apoquel, which is an immunomodulator. Again, it seemed like a perfect drug, but again its started to stop working. He picks at his skin getting recurring skin infections needing antibiotic treatment. I thought there might be a behavioral component so we we got him on a low dose of prozac. I'm not sure it does anything. He also takes daily benadryl. Elimination diets have also failed.

Now hes just completely miserable. He spends half of his time hiding under beds. He wears a shirt all the time just so he doesn't tear at his skin. He can't go on walks anymore because the sun hurts his skin and it becomes inflamed. He smells terrible from all of his skin issues and the smell permeates the house. His recurring skin infections and KIDNEY infections cost me sometimes hundreds of dollars a month. My last treatment option is allergy shots. From personal experience they haven't worked for any human I've known (and lots of people I know have tried them). If I go down this route its hundreds more dollars to start up, then paying for the shots. His costs are as much as a lot of people pay in rent.

To complicate the matter we just had our first child. I don't know if hes acting out but he has started to pee in various places in our house. He has to wear a doggy diaper a lot of the time. My wife wants to get rid of him. I love him but honestly his quality of life is pretty bad and hes so young. I would rehome him, but who would want to take on a dog with health problems like this? I would feel terrible euthanizing him, but again his quality of life is awful. He is more of a burden than anything now. And looking at him that way makes me feel awful because he loves us so much and I love him.

I have no idea what to do I need some outside perspective. Are there people out there that would take in a dog like this? What should I do?