I don't want to leave my dog in this state

So I finally found out what's wrong with Shadow.

Because we can't afford a vet at the moment we got Phil's uncle to come and have a look at him. He's not a vet but he can give Cesar Millan a run for his money and he takes on and nurses wild animals back to health from the RSPCA.

He has something called hot spots, areas of skin that weep with pus, a bit smelly and they make it worse by licking the area. One can turn into seven overnight which it has done, caused by stress.

Phil's uncle said that dog packs do everything together and because Shadow's been on his own a lot he's worried himself to the point of self mutilation. He believes that Shadow knows we are moving and the "exclusion" he's felt from us leads him to believe that we're casting him out of the pack and leaving him behind, it's gotten worse as the packing has become complete. He is distressed and more depressed than a sucidal lemming.

Had we known we wouldn't have left him in the hall. We both feel terrible. Even more so because I cancelled the insurance.

So since my last post about him he's not gotten better but he's not got worse. He wears a lampshade collar at night to stop him licking. He doesn't wear it in the day because we can keep an eye on him we're really surprised that these three days he hasn't tried to lick his wounds at all while he's been free of the collar. Yay!

However Phil's uncle was more concerned about Shadow's emotional state and he almost didn't talk about his physical injuries. He's such a depressed pooch it's heartbreaking, we're taking him on more walks and paying him more attention.

I'm worried about leaving him alone when we have our leaving do a week on Friday. It gives us nearly two weeks to get him in a better state, I don't want to not go, but I don't want to leave my dog in this state on his own for a few hours.

I'm even more worried about the journey down there. I can't muzzle him and I can't leave the collar on so I'm gonna see if we can stop every 45 mins so I can check on him, I might have to sit in the back with him if he's bad. Arrrrgh this move is an absolute nightmare, self mutilating dogs, a friend who offered to take the pets down yet doesn't have a van yet (Phil is freaking the hell out over this).

I'm never moving again.