Page 73 of Forget That Guy
The woman only bawled harder.
The dog, however, mellowed out even more.
Then started to whimper.
He suddenly pressed closer to the cage door so that his entire body was smushed against it, trying to get closer to the woman.
“Oh, Neo,” the woman cried.
“Ma’am,” Denver started, but the woman looked up at him with teary eyes. “I’m Sage.”
Sage.
“Sage,” Denver started. “Come away from the cage so we can get that finger looked at.”
“No,” she disagreed almost immediately. “I’m not leaving this spot.”
Denver sighed.
“I have a camper,” she said softly. “The door didn’t close all the way, I guess. Or whoever stole him broke in. I don’t know. I got home from a shift, and he was gone. Like, gone, nowhereto be found gone. I searched everywhere. And here’s the thing. Neo is damn smart. If he’d gotten out, he’d have come to find me. He’s done it before. My boyfriend, when he bought him for me, taught him to track. He can find drugs. He can find people. He can find a treed squirrel. He can find literally anything if he wants to.”
“He was taken,” she mumbled. “He’s been missing for eighteen days.”
My heart broke for her.
“I knew someone stole him,” she whispered. “I just hoped that he was in a loving home where someone was taking care of him.”
She pressed her hand up to the cage again, and all of us flinched.
The dog did nothing but press harder against the cage and whine louder.
“Let him out,” she begged.
“No,” Denver and Boone said at the same time. “He’s aggressive, ma’am. And until we can figure out that he won’t attack you, that’s not going to happen.”
“It’s my dog.”
“It’s also my liability,” Boone countered. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Professional opinion.”
I hated to side with a man, but…
“I agree,” I said softly. “Until we can for sure know that he won’t attack, and not just you, we can’t let him out without having him secured.”
She said something under her breath about kidnapping and ‘we’ll see.’
After a couple of awkward minutes trying to decide what it was that we were going to do, we decided to go back to the dog we were able to inject with some calming meds earlier.
Charlene and I cried as we checked the dog’s wounds over.
Boone and Denver talked quietly in the corner while watching Sage all but press herself against the kennel and talk quietly to the pup.
“I hate people,” Charlene said as she slowly wiped at the dog’s matted fur. “Especially ones that mistreat animals.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Fifteen minutes later, the dog was cleaned up, his wounds—which weren’t as bad as we thought—were cleaned and he was back in his kennel.
Charlene cleaned up while I went to the corner to see what the two men were discussing.
