And then there were three

As everyone knows, when you get married you have to combine both of your lives together along with all of your belongings. That can be a bit of a challenge. Nathan has a dog, Dakota and Vanessa has a dog, Toby. Unfortunately Toby is a bit of a bully and he and Dakota did not get along. But Nathan is a wonderful man and decided that Dakota would be better off living with Todd (Nathan's brother). The pictures are of Toby, our baby. Actually Vanessa's baby and Nathan's thorn in his side.
About a month ago our neighbor told us that Toby was too much of a nuisance. So, we have been working on training him not to bark and stay in a crate while we are not home. In other words, paid a huge amount of money for someone to come to our house and tell us what to do, then we are stuck trying to train the dog that will not listen and get frustrated, then give up. We haven't actually given up, but the thought crosses our mind several times a day. Toby is 3 and has been a spoiled brat since the day Vanessa got him and now we are throwing a wrench in things and making him listen/do things we want him to do. He is doing ok with the training, it just takes time.
Toby also has allergies. This wasn't easy to come by, it took about 2 1/2 years of going through all sorts of medications and other tests to figure out what was wrong and then finally deciding to pay the money for an allergy test. Little did we realize, had we done that in the first place we could have saved thousands (yes thousands) of dollars. Here are just a few of the things he's allergic to: cotton (good luck with that, everything in our home has cotton in it), mold, pollen, dust, grass, trees (pick one he's pretty much allergic to them all), pork, beef, wheat, soy, milk and the list goes on and on. The good thing is, all of this is treatable with monthly injections. i.e. more money. Did we mention thorn in Nathan's side (and wallet). We are starting to rethink this whole choosing Toby over Dakota thing. :)