A dapper man of regal bearing, dressed in tweed trousers, a knitted sweater and a woolen jacket walked into the Palmersville Animal Shelter.
He shouted at one of the employees he saw. "Missy, where would I find Mr. Henley?"
"In his office," she said as she tried to corral three escaped kittens. She tried to gesture with a tilt of her head to an office farther back in the facility.
The man walked past an unoccupied receptionist's desk. Moments later, he walked into the office of the manager of the shelter.
"Mr. Henley, I presume?"
A harried man of about 40 looked up from his desk. "Can I help you?"
"I am Mitchell Sutton, sir," the man said. "I had a call."
Henley gave back a vacant stare. "The sheepdog, man," Sutton said impatiently. "You called, as I requested, about receiving a proper English sheepdog into your facility. I came at once."
Henley now remembered making the phone call, as he had promised, months ago, to make. Sutton had visited one day and made the request and, when Henley did some research into him, he discovered that the man owned a sprawling farm and estate outside of Palmersville and happened to be one of the richest men in town.
"Of course," Henley said, getting to his feet. "I'm so glad you're still in the market for one. We had this guy come in yesterday and..."
Noticing the abrupt pause, Sutton raised a single eyebrow. "Yes?"
"Well, shall we just say that he's not getting along with the other dogs in the holding pen," Henley said. "He's extremely submissive, and you know how big dogs can get when they don't have a lot of freedom for all their pent-up energy."
Sutton frowned. "If he's such a submissive dog, I'm not sure I can use him, but I've come all this way. Might as well have a look at him. Lead the way, my good man."
A few moments later Henley and Sutton stood outside the pen with the shelter's larger male dogs. The sheepdog had backed himself into a corner and moped inattentively. His companions moved to the other side of the pen when Henley, grabbing a choke harness from a hook on the wall, entered the pen.
Minutes later, with a confused sheepdog resisting the effort, Henley both pulled and pushed the dog out of the pen, using the chokehold of the pole-mounted harness to keep the dog under control.
Jared, who had been taunted by the Rottweiler and other dogs for days about the shelter's vets and mandatory neutering, kicked, barked, growled and resisted to the utmost what he mistakenly anticipated was a visit to the vet for a quick but unwanted procedure.
"See you later, girl," the big Rottweiler barked at him.
"No," Jared barked and pleaded, trying to use his nails on his paw paws to dig into the concrete floor.
Instead of whisking him to surgery, Henley halted him in front of a well-dressed stranger.
"Well, he does show some fighting spirit," Sutton said. "I like that."
"Does that mean you'll take him?" Henley inquired.
Jared, no longer in panic mode, listened, too.
"I believe I shall do so, my good chap," Sutton said. "May we dispense with the paperwork. I'd like to take him home and start getting him adjusted to his new life."
"Well, there are signatures," Henley hesitated.
"Have one of your employees run them out to my estate," Sutton said.
Henley, knowing Sutton's importance and wealth, relented. "Certainly, sir," he said. "Do you mind if I ask why you so wanted an English sheepdog?"
Sutton laughed at the question. "What do you think one wants with an English sheepdog?" Sutton replied. "I have sheep, man. Hundred of them in several flocks. I need a good sheepdog to help me handle them."
He bent down. With one hand, he grabbed beneath Jared's snout and held the dog's face motionless. With his other hand, he swept aside the fur that had gotten into Jared's eyes. He stared at the dog. "Intelligent look to him," Sutton said. "That's good."
Henley led the sheepdog through the facility and across the parking lot to Sutton's beat-up blue truck.
"Do you have a transport cage?" Henley asked.
"Nonsense," Sutton said. "Toss him in the back of the truck."
Henley had already gone this far, so he didn't want to jeopardize antagonizing the man now. He used the noose to force the sheepdog to jump into the bed of the truck, and then he slammed the gate. Before Jared could react, Sutton got behind the wheel of the truck and pulled onto the highway. With the countryside whipping past at an excess of 50 miles per hour, Jared sank to the bed of the truck and held on for dear life.