Romeo, oh Romeo

Romeo is my dog.  He is an Australian Shepherd mix.  And, he is an asshole.  My husband and I live in different states at the moment (only 2 more weeks!) and we decided to keep one dog each, because we're selfish.  Ryan kept Banjo Ladybird, our Basset Hound.  She is hard-headed but absolutely precious.  I kept Romeo.  The Romeo I used to know was the perfect dog.  He was potty-trained in 3 days, very loving, never barks, excellent manners, and boooooy did he love his mama.  Romeo would just gaze at me for hours no matter what I was doing.  I get up to pee in the night, Romeo would quietly follow me to the bathroom, lay on the floor, then follow me back to bed.  So sweet.  He actually used to creep Ryan out a bit.  Ryan would say, "Romeo looks at you like he has a crush on you.  That's weird, right."  No Ryan, it isn't.  We love each other.  That was the old Romeo.

Present Day Romeo: Asshole
To set the tone, I want to inform you that I cleaned up linoleum dog shit yesterday.  How does this happen?  Exactly how you think it does.  Romeo lives in the laundry room while I'm at work.  He tore up the linoleum and ate it for a snack.  For the 2nd time, by the way.  If that's not bad enough, where he has ripped up and eaten the linoleum, he pees all over the exposed, wooden, porous floor that lies underneath.  It looked like a lot of pee, an abnormally large amount of urine.  I look at his water bowl, that he has never ever finished, and it's all gone.  It was Romeo's way of telling me to go to hell.  He ate the floor and then had a urine flash-flood party.  How do you get that smell out of the wood after there's been urine sitting on it, seeping in all day.  You don't.  My eyes water when I walk in the front door now.

I wish this was his only issue.  In the past 2 months he has, eaten my blue suede shoes, black pumps, rainbows, pin cushion (pins included), picture frame (broke the glass in the process), Wedding Pictures DVD (I might need a replacement, Lauren), linoleum, tripped me down the stairs (considered going to the ER), collected 13 different balls from neighbors yards, stolen a kids shoe from the neighbors porch and chewed it (I threw it away for plausible deniability purposes...who am I kidding, they know it's him), stolen a blow-up Snowman from someones storage  unit, and managed to mad-dog anyone who has tried to approach him when I'm not home (I know where he got that one from.)  He is hell on earth right now.

I have tried so many things to help him adjust better.  A doggy door that my Brother in law installed for me (thanks, Jerms), leaving him inside, leaving him outside on a run, leaving him outside not on a run, putting him in a cage...he screws everything up.  He runs away or eats something or makes me feel bad because he looks miserable.  What am I supposed to do?  I've actually cried over this, because he used to be so great and I feel like I've done all this to him.  Should we have gotten a house with a fence?  Too late now, our landlords won't let us.  It's a sad situation.  My latest 2 options are, buy a $300 outdoor cage big enough for him to move around a bit, or sell him to a Chinese restaurant for real cheap.  Right, I bought the cage.  I attempted to put it together today, and got the steel frame put together of this 10x10x6 kennel.  I'm so proud of myself, and then, the wind blows.  Just hard enough to topple the frame onto it's side, and all the piece of crap plastic fittings break.  Snap!  Fail.  And the neighbors were outside and saw me.  I mad-dogged them and walked inside.  It's still out there, but it's dark so it's okay, right?

What am I supposed to do?  I really need some help.  Romeo is breaking my heart and making me want to break his face at the same time.  Help me, please.  I can't handle another day of linoleum shit.  Could you?