River

 A couple things about River were immediately apparent. 1. He does not like to be touched. This is really sad, but I expect he's never known a kind and loving touch from a human, or at least not a male human. 2. He's never been in a house with stairs. Neither of these findings are at all surprising given than he came from a Korean dog meat farm. He's never known a kind human until he came to this country and probably has a lot of baggage to overcome. And he's probably never been in a house of any kind and never encountered stairs. 

I'm leaving him downstairs in the kitchen at night, uncrated. It's likely that he's going to have very adverse reactions to a crate because he was probably confined to one at the meat farm. What's surprising is how good his house manners are. He pissed on the floor the first night, which I couldn't fault him for, but he didn't even do that the second night. 

It was frosty this morning so I waited until about noon to put him out in Daneland with Allison. They stayed there until evening feed and came in soon after it got dark. He's back in the kitchen again for the night. 

I put a nice new leather collar on him and removed the ill-fitting harness. I'm walking him to and from Daneland with a slip lead. He's a nice boy and takes treats very nicely from an open palm. He has been in the country since May and it's clear that they were working with him, but he has trust issues that will take a while to overcome. Chances are that all his bad life experiences were at the hands of men and that everyone that has been kind to him since his arrival was a woman, so we are taking things slow and not pushing him out of his comfort zone. Although he doesn't like a hand reaching out to touch him, he will initiate touch himself. I've been able to touch his nose but he's not fond of a hand coming over his head. Got to keep them within his sight and move slow.

This experience has already pushed me hard in the direction of becoming vegan. 

The ribs show, a lot, so he's getting generous portions of food.

Maya is still his favorite, but I don't trust her outside in Daneland, 

so I put Allison out there with him during the warm part of the day,

but I want him mostly inside to get used to people and life as an indoor dog.