Things my dog does not deserve...

I have quite a strange relationship with my once sweet and lovable, now smelly and manipulative, chocolate lab. I have had him his whole life (almost 4 yrs) and his behavior has gone from bad to worse.. in other words, what once was typical exuberant puppy behavior has progressed in those few years, to full blown idiocy. I'm sure this is completely my fault; a dog is like a child, needing proper training and consistency.. but I have real children, and thought that a dog would be a nice accessory to our family. Not the bane of my existence. Here is a run down of Griffen life: He is an inside dog, and as he is obsessed with me, will follow an inch behind me ALL day. He rarely goes to the bathroom outside because he is too worried to be out of my sight. When he is obedient enough to do this, he keeps eye contact with me the whole time, and if I go in before he does, he bolts in the door after me. Most likely not even finishing his business. That he saves for when I leave. I can let him outside 20 times a day, but when I leave for 20 minutes, he poops on the floor of whatever room he is in. He is even so sneaky, that when Eli leaves for work at 6:00, Griffen won't go to the bathroom for him. He uses that 1 1/2 hour window to go on the floor, before I wake up. When you punish him for this, he shivers and cowers and acts like he has endured a life times worth of beatings, but then as soon as he is freed from his confinement, he won't think twice of hoisting up on the counter to look for sticks of butter to eat. Whole. With the paper on. That's another thing; he devours the trash at any chance he gets and spreads it ALL over the house. His favorite find is dirty diapers, which he partially eats and partially spreads all over the carpet. As I do not have any children in diapers, Griffen considers himself very lucky to find a diaper left by visitors in the trash. When I confront him and yell at him, he shivers and cowers and acts pathetic.. but it's all an act! He is such a needy, disloyal dog. And to top off all this bad behavior, he has skin problems so he looks frightful, stinks horribly and scratches himself constantly, rubbing up against furniture and shaking all over the place, in a cloud of skin flakes. So I go to the vet to see whats up with his itching/ hair loss/ smell. She tells me it's a food allergy and that this dear dog needs a special, expensive, diet. Like the stuff you can only buy at the vet that's like $40 a bag. So giving me a print out of all the "special" needs, I see that there are many recipes for homemade dog food. This I like, as I try to make everything for us homemade anyway. And I do love Griffen. In a wayward child kind of way. So I have been brewing him up a special mix for weeks now. Mainly its an oatmeal/brown rice/salmon/broccoli/cod liver oil mix. It's very inconvenient. And I have to store it in the fridge and its in a huge bowl and it smells horribly. And I have only seen slight improvements to his appearance and smell. But isn't that just why we have pets? Because they bring so much joy to our lives, enriching our lives with their sweet, cuddly presence?