Free A New Leash on Life by Suzie Carr

waiting on help from the government.”
    The end of the month raced towards us and I had no extra funding after paying the overhead bills to fix the structural problems in the shelter. I had to cancel our usual spot in the Valley Breeze Community Newspaper because I needed the cash to cover the extra kibble needed to feed double the hungry mouths. So, I relied on my website to pique the interest of potential adopters.
    “Give it time,” Melanie said, stretching her hands the full length of Snowball. “Everything will come back around.”
    The townspeople strained to dig up money to fund their own rehabilitation projects. I needed help sooner than later. “It’ll be months before any of us see funding to get us the repairs we all need.”
    “You’re killing my energy here,” she said, stopping.
    “I’m sorry. I’ll let you be.” I backed away and she returned her focus to Snowball.
    I walked down the kennel aisle and looked into the hopeful eyes of dog after dog. They relied on me, and I needed to step up to the challenge. I needed to look beyond the town and somehow get outsiders to understand our plight. I knew just who to turn to.
    When Josh answered, sounding rushed and surely on his way out the door to one of his son’s many baseball practices, I cut right to it. “I need your help with getting someone up here to interview me.”
    He cleared his throat. “I’m a production assistant, not the general manager of the network.”
    “Do what you can, please.”
    “Is it that bad?”
    “Worse,” I said.
    “I’d loan you some, but I’m barely able to pay my mortgage each month.”
    “I just need a reporter, cameraman, and some coverage outside the scope of Elkwood.”
    “I’ll see what I can do. It’ll cost you a night of babysitting your nephew if I succeed.”
    “Done.”
    “Fine,” he said. “Oh, and,” he blew out a breath, “I read something troubling last week.”
    “Hint, please.”
    “Did you know Melanie’s house is in foreclosure?”
    “That’s absurd. She and Henry inherited that house from his parents like twenty years ago.”
    “Well, I went there for a treatment the other day and when she went to the bathroom, I went to get myself a glass of water and the notice was on the counter, opened. Maybe after Henry died, she took out an equity line of credit.”
    After Henry died and she moved back in to the house, she gutted out the living room and turned it into a reiki studio. She also bought a new four-wheel drive truck and took a vacation to Spain for two months. “Anything’s possible.” Her clutter entered my mind, and I dreaded the day she’d ask for help in clearing it out. I couldn’t deal with one more thing on my plate. “I’m not going to bring it up. So, you don’t either, okay?”
    “I’m heading over there for a reiki treatment tomorrow. I’ll do my best.”
    “I’ll babysit for you if you can manage an interview,” I said.
    “Done.”
    ~ ~
    Working in a shelter required lots of patience and emotional control. Some of the pets had been abused, malnourished, unloved for years. Many arrived wagging their tails anticipating a fun field trip with their owners only to be discarded at our front desk with a pat on the head and a shrug. He’s too much work. She pees in the house. He sheds too much. He barks all the time. She’s just too big. As a responsible guard of animal welfare, a shelter worker simply thanked the person for not abandoning their pet on the side of the road. Lecture these people and they’d do that next time, for sure.
    So, we’d take the animals back, and I’d examine their shaky bodies as they stressed over when their master would return for them and bring them back home to where they belonged. My heart broke every time I had to place them in a kennel all alone without a window to gaze out, without a couch to climb up on, without a master to please.
    I wanted to take them all home with me. I wanted to cook them homemade chicken and rice