Howie, 1 Month In

Howie has settled in to our house and our routines quite nicely. He is gaining confidence daily, and now even occasionally gives a play bow to one of our two. He’s not interested in anything other than a little bit of chase, certainly not the wrestling the other two do, but that is fine. He is willing to let Larry know when Larry is too much in his face.
Our dogs are also teaching him bad habits. When they decide to stand on the back of the couch and bark, Howie now heads to the couch to try and look out the window, as well.
I still think Howie is deaf, or mostly deaf, but he is very interested in the world around him. If he notices movement (and he appears to have very good eyesight) he wants to go investigate. He also loves to sniff. We have tried a couple of experiments at the dog park and what we have learned is that if he is sniffing and wandering, he will come back to us. However, if he has decided to follow someone (or some dog) he will just keep following, and we need to go leash him and bring him back.
Despite not being able to hear verbal commands, Howie is quite responsive to our wishes. He understands visual commands and slight tugs on the leash very well. Because he loves to be with us, he follows us, and pretty much always has one of us in sight, making it very easy for us to let him know what we want him to do.
We did end up with an accident or two after the first week or so when we stopped being hyper vigilant. It was not Howie’s fault, we just missed his cues. We are now much better catching his cues. The trickiest part is that his main cue that he needs to go out is identical to what he does when he wants you to pet him except that if you ignore him, instead of settling down, he just becomes much more insistent. But we seem to be past the learning curve now, and doing well.
We recently upped the amount of food we’re giving him, because after a month with us, on what we thought was a weight gain diet, he really doesn’t appear of have gained any weight. And he needs to.
The only problem with that is that while our dogs are on a once a day feeding schedule, Howie just doesn’t seem to have any interest in eating that much at once. So he usually gets his food put down for him twice a day, one time with our dogs having to be closed away from him, since they aren’t getting fed.
We hope to have a conversation with the rescue about whether or not he is adoptable soon. Personality wise, I think he is. He is older, but still has some pep in his step, and as I said, enjoys exploring the world. The biggest concern is that he is deaf, but I think that people might be able to overlook that. Certainly at the dog park, he makes fans of every person he meets with his sweetness.