Seeking hope

I know some of you have dogs - can you tell me if this will get better? I need reassurance. Right now, Hero is pretty much misery. He can't follow any commands (which I know says more about his training, or lack thereof). He steals all of our stuff. He's a nightmare to walk - my hands are all scraped up from holding onto his leash while he pulls and tugs. We've got him gated from the upstairs and downstairs of the house, but even so he can't just hang out in the main level without causing problems. He has like 900 toys, but he insists on taking stuff that isn't his and eating it. This is not really how I pictured having a puppy to be. Unless he's in his pen, I can't ever not be engaging him, or he'll misbehave. And I can't play fetch for 8 hours a day while Hubs is at work. I have my own stuff to do. I just need to know: will it ever be fun?

I looked into a guy who'd come and train Hero at our house twice, for 2.5 hours each time. He's insanely expensive though. Like, ridiculous. And we don't want to spend the money. But sometimes I daydream about this Dog Lord, knocking on our front door and swiftly and competently righting things.