I've waited a few days to post again until I'm sure of what's happened - but it looks like it's true! Rollo has returned from the trainer a reformed character! He looks and acts like a dog, as opposed to a difficult pup! Obviously, he hasn't really changed much in appearance but he just comes across as the golden retriever we always wanted, rather than the nightmare we seemed to get!
Aside from the slight exaggeration, he really is a different dog. He mooches about on his own, without doing destructive chewing/ jumping up all the time anymore. He hasn't nipped anyone once. He can walk virtually normally on a lead attached to his normal collar!
He has these brilliant, hard, solid poos! I LOVE his poos! No diarrhoea! He's solely on the vet prescribed diet for now (Royal Canin Whitefish and Tapioca). He loves it so much that I can use it as treats too.
I think several things have helped: he's a had a break froma hyper-stressed me! He's been with 3 other dogs. He's had free run of a whole single level flat and yard. He's been looked after by someone who's confident and sure about being with dogs and trains them for a living.
Her feedback is that he doesn't need training. He needs freedom - to mooch and be a dog. I put off his return in order to erect a temporary fence in our garden. Took me 2 days to do this but it's finally up and although it looks awful, it's really worth it. He can now wander into the garden from the kitchen when he wants to. I don't have to put his harness and lead on every time I take him into the garden and yank him away from fallen fruit or the pond or plants. He has a large patio and part of a lawn to play and run at will and the only irritating thing he's doing is digging holes and as long as eating earth and moss doens't give him diarrhoea, then i don't really mind for now.
We've let him have supervised access to the family room - the room off the kitchen and he's laid down at the feet of my twins whilst they're on their PCs and they've interacted a bit more with him. We've let him go into the sitting room- although this is more problematic, as the cats are there and we have to watch them together all the time - so far though, all they do is sniff and lick each others noses or bums!
Generally, he's miles better. He woke me the first night back at 10.30pm and 11pm but when I let him out he didn't need to toilet at all. The trainer had told me he happily went through from 9pm till 8am without really needing a wee or poo and that he's fully toilet trained. Last night, he didn't wee from about 8pm till 5.45am. I let him out from 9pm till 9.30pm and he still didn't need to go and I actually woke him this morning (I need to get up early myself so 5.45am is a reasonable time for me).
He's just being a regular dog now rather than an unpredictable puppy. He's also nearly 6 months old now, whihc must have something to do with it and obviously as he's not unwell, he must be feeling better in himself too.
Anyone else struggling with a puppy, I'd obviously recommend getting help from a trainer or dog sitter who can simply break bad habits by modelling a different way of being. She didn't actively try to do anything really - just kind of assumed he'd fit in with her lifestyle and dogs and he did. She said he was the easiest puppy she's ever had and she'd previosuly thought on of her own dogs had been the perfect pup.
Anyway, we're only on day 3 so I hope this lasts! But it's really helped to have a mutual break from each other and he seems to have settled back with us even better than before, isn't pining for her and is SO much easier 