Let's play a game- who has the most high maintenan

I guess I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and want to vent. Feel free to chime in with your story, and whoever wins the most votes gets our unending sympathy and official "queen mommy martyr" status. Disclaimer - of course it goes without saying that we love them and they're worth it, but it can get overwhelming sometimes.

I've had Hoss for a year. He is a yellow lab/golden retriever mix.

Hoss has bad food allergies. He cannot have any product or by product of chicken or turkey. He's also very allergic to grains, corn, rice, and now I'm suspecting peas too. Do you have any idea what a nightmare it is trying to find him food?! If he has these foods he breaks out in oozing/bleeding sores, scratches himself bloody, gets yeast infections in his ears, and if I'm super lucky, a UTI too. Prednisone is the only thing that calms this down.

He's also allergic to the environment. He has a bad reaction to Zyrtec, and Claritin isn't working that great, so we're on the hunt for a 3rd allergy med. Benadryl does nothing for him. He's allergic to grass, but he's so itchy he rolls in the grass to scratch, which covers him in the allergens...you get the idea. He chews his paws from it so I have to wash his paws with baby wipes when he comes in from outside to keep him from chewing raw spots on them.

He has a chronic UTI condition that we *just* got under control after dealing with it for months. ::knock on wood::. I only spent $1300 on vet visits, medicine, X-rays and ultrasounds. What finally did it was 30 days of antibiotics, prescription urinary acidifiers, a cranberry powdered supplement to treat the high pH and struvite crystals, and a special water fountain to encourage him to drink.

The X-rays revealed that his spine is a hot mess, and that he's closer to 5 yrs old ( instead of 3). The vet said he has severe spondylosis of his spine. He's a little stiff sometimes now, but the vet said eventually he's going to be in a lot of pain and other than giving him pain meds there's nothing they can do.

He has bad anxiety. I got him as a foster before formally adopting him. They said he was around 2 yrs old, and his *entire life* before I got him he lived in shelters and boarding. He had never even been inside a house until I brought him home. As you can imagine, he had some behavioral issues, like not knowing commands, not knowing how to take a treat, etc, but those are mostly resolved. He goes to daycare to work on his social skills.

However, now that he has it so good, he's terrified it's going to go away. He follows me constantly and is velcro'd to my legs. If I make a tiny move he leaps up off the floor like someone jabbed him with a pin, in a panic lest I move five feet away. He refuses to go potty unless I'm standing outside with him. He pants, paces, obsessively grooms himself, and checks on me all night long to make sure I haven't left my bed. He's so anxious he wouldn't play with the other dogs at daycare, but since he's started Prozac that has improved a bit. He's on meds, plus I'm implementing training, Rescue Remedy and a Thundershirt to help, but I think he needs a behaviorist. I would love to get him a sister to see if it would help his anxiety, so I took in a foster dog for a week. She was a small 40lb very submissive sweet lab mix. I thought Hoss was going to lose his mind. He aggressively resource guarded me, and nipped her and bullied her constantly. The final straw was when he nipped me on the elbow for petting her. I gave her to a different foster for her own safety.

Due to his food allergies, his food options are severely limited. Avoderm ($47/bag) was his last resort after his Nature's domain made him very sick during the pet food recall. He now has a case of hot spots, leading me to believe he's allergic to peas too (peas are very similar to corn) and if so I don't think I'll have any other choice but to cook him food. I've searched endlessly and I can't find food that is free of poultry, grains, corn, rice and peas. Cooking food for a 105lb dog that can't have cheap chicken is a daunting and expensive task. Then when you add in his cranberry supplement for his UTI issue, glucosamine and chondroitin for his spine, allergy meds for his environmental allergies, Rescue Remedy and Prozac for anxiety, and the high cost of his heartworm/flea meds due to his weight....his daily food and meds alone are eating my fun money.

It's been an exhausting, stressful and very expensive year. It can only get better, right?