Broken Souls Don't Cry

Chapter 2

Sara

A week later Sara pulled into the parking lot of the animal shelter she worked at. She couldn't wait to get inside and play with the dogs. One day, after she had graduated, she would adopt from this very shelter. There were many dogs here in desperate need of a home and she would adopt them all if she could find enough land for them to run free. Her ultimate goal was to be a licensed social worker and have an animal rescue.

"Hey AJ!" Sara greeted her coworker at the front desk. AJ was a couple years older than her, brown hair and eyes. She could easily describe him as a fit chubby guy. A lot like those football players who are so fit yet have a poochy belly. His personality was funny, and she was pretty sure he had been the class clown because he is always cracking jokes. He was good looking, but as Sara told Casey, she wasn't really interested in dating right now, school was more important to her and ever since high school...

No, she thought, do not go down that rabbit hole, I know where that leads, and I can't go there again.

"Hey Sara! I am so glad to see you" He said with a smile "Bruno has been an anxious mess today and I know he'd love to see you as you are the only one who can calm him down.

"Ah, good ol' Bruno" she chuckled as she continued toward the breakroom, "I'll go clock in and then see what I can do for him". She went to her locker and put her stuff away before clocking in. Then donned her work apron and filled it with treats. Sara always found the dogs loved her the most because she always had treats on her. Then she headed out the door towards the row of dog kennels.

She could hear Bruno's frantic barking the moment she walked through the doors to the holding area. Bruno was a 10-year-old border collie and Labrador mix that someone had brought in as a surrender a year ago. He was the second longest resident of their shelter, the longest being Ashby who was an 11-year-old adorable rottie. Most people didn't like to adopt older dogs and it broke her heart. If her apartment would allow pets, she'd have Bruno and Ashby busted out of here before anyone else would notice. Bruno had been abused by his previous owner and had fear aggression of humans, especially males, when he came to the shelter. No one had adopted him yet due to his behavior issues and there was currently no room in the rescues nearby. The end of his stay was coming up in a few months and Sara needed to find him a home before he was put down.

When she approached his kennel, she could see that he was pacing, back and forth, sometimes pausing at the door and pawing at it. He was just an anxious mess. Bruno was the sweetest dog in here and she had a hard time understanding why no one had adopted him yet other than his age.

"Hey Bruno" she calmly said to him "What has you all worked up today?" she knelt down by his kennel "Were you worried I wasn't going to come in?" He stopped pacing and looked at her, then barked. "That's what I figured. You know I wouldn't work without saying hi to you" He came over to the edge of the kennel and started pawing at it with an anxious whine.

"Alright, let me go get a leash and I'll take you to the yard."

The yard was a little dog park the shelter had on site. It was a good place to take the dogs and work on training and working out pent up energy from being in the kennels all day long. Part of her job was to take each dog to the yard and play with them while working on basic training. Her boss, Jerry, was a dog behaviorist and also had his own dog training business on the side. He made sure every employee worked with the dogs to help them become more adoptable by having good manners and were well socialized.

The shelter would often get the rejects from other shelters, the dogs who had behavior problems, like Bruno, and would otherwise be put down because they were considered un-adoptable. Jerry would take them in and work through their issues and he had a great success rate so long as the new owners completed training with him.