I see a lot of posts about shared variables but nothing I have run across seems to match exactly what I am trying to do.

I work for an animal shelter and we track the intakes and outcomes of the animals.  We have an Intake Type and Intake Subtype field in the same table (kennel.)  What I've been asked to do sounds simple but I can't seem to figure out how.

The main report is set up to isolate any animal which falls within the Select statement.  That is done.  Then I take the animal ID field into a sub-report via the Sub-report link box.  The sub-report then looks through the entire kennel table for any record which has a matching animal ID in it.  This data is put in the sub-report's header and sorted so that only the earliest kennel record is displayed on the report.

I need to take the Intake Subtype of the earliest kennel record (the one which is displayed on the report) back to the main report and then (once all of the animals have been processed) to use this information in a crosstab in the main report.  Which record's information will the shared variable have in it when it goes back to the main report?  The first kennel record it processed or the last?  Also, how do I store the shared variable's value between records in the main report since the shared variable is re-initialized each time it chains to the sub-report?

The kennel table is already joined to itself as an alias called 'returned'.  The Select statement in the main report is:
({returned.intake_type} = "RETURN" and
{returned.intake_date} in {?Begin} to {?End})
and
({kennel.outcome_date} in {?Begin} to {?End} and
{kennel.outcome_type}="ADOPTION")
and
{animal.animal_type}={?AnimalTypeToConsiderForReport}

Although I have seen command statements, I've never written one.  Can you have both tables and a command in Database Expert?  How do they relate one another?