Dear Editor: This letter is born of my own animal rescue experiences, the most recent of which has cost me quite a bit of money and even more heartache. I hope by sharing the story of a four year-old Maine Coon mix street cat, Friskie, I can dramatize the plight of animals, who find themselves on our crowded, dangerous urban streets. Three years ago when we moved to North Bergen and were cleaning out our yard, my husband discovered a mother tending a newborn litter of kittens beneath some plastic in the rear of our garage. We fed the Mom and slowly tried to socialize her, and my neighbor tried her best with some of the newborns. All the kittens died except for one, which the Mom-cat moved beneath our deck and raised to eight weeks of age. Then Mom, “Minuit,” began to bring the baby around to us, almost begging for her to be taken in . When the cold set in, my husband managed to take in the baby girl. We tested her, cleared up the worms, vaccinated her, operated for a rare vaccine sarcoma which occurred when she got her first shots, and spayed her when she came of age. She loved the warm indoors and my other cats from the first. Trapping her Mom was another story. My neighbor caught her in a kindness cage one Friday night. I took her in, had her spayed (she was already working on her second pregnancy) and set about trying to find her a home. My husband and I tried all the local rescue and foster organizations to search for placement help; most of them didn’t even bother to return the calls. It rapidly became clear that she was here to stay, too. Since she was feral and older, it has taken three years to make her a full part of my indoor feline colony, but she is now very affectionate at home and counts us and the other cats as her friends. This year another litter was born and found its way here again. My neighbor found homes for all but one of the kittens, Calista, whom, together with her mother, Sapho, we had spayed and vaccinated. The two girls + their father, a beautiful Maine Coon, Friskie, whom my neighbor had always cared for outdoors and whom she neutered, made a touching trio. Again, no luck with the local rescue organizations in finding homes. I even tried all my cat friends in the fancy; those who rescue and foster were full, as was I with both household pets and pedigree cats and kittens. Though we loved the sight of them romping together in the summer, we knew that statistically outdoor cats live half the years that indoor ones do. They are prone to disease and accidents, which is, unhappily, what happened to Friskie last week. Last week Friskie limped into my neighbor’s yard his eye gouged, his teeth and mouth abscessed, clearly very ill. (He had either encountered another animal, though this was less likely from the absence of scratches and other wounds, or he had been the victim of a sling-shot or beebee gun!) She took him to a local vet who released the cat without even trauma treatment because my neighbor was unable to commit to the cost of the surgery required. This vet sent him home with the feline equivalent of an aspirin-clavamox. When I learned of this from my neighbor, I knew we had to get him help. We took him to North Bergen Animal Hospital where they removed his eye, did dentistry to clear up his infected mouth, put him on IV and antibiotics to combat secondary infection. His blood serology and all other tests found him in otherwise good health. He is now recuperating in my garage, where I have set up a veterinary cage. My neighbor has helped me nurse him back to health. Stitches now removed, all vaccinations given, groomed and flea-bathed, he is getting ready to begin a new life far away from North Bergen. While he has been recovering, I tried for the third time every organization I know locally. Again not even one returned phone call! I sent letters, contacted every friend I knew in the cat fancy, but they were still full. Finally, BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SANCTUARY, in Kanab, UT, agreed to take him. They are a wonderful no-kill rescue organization whose mandate specializes in abused animals. They offer life-time care-giving on a large acreage which features special cat houses and safe outdoor runs. As soon as he is fully fit, I will fly him out to Utah. My neighbors and I will miss him dearly, but we hope the sun and space and love of the sanctuary workers will help him forget the cruelty he has experienced and he will enjoy a comfortable maturity and old age. Meanwhile, I am desperate to find his family, Celesta and Sapho, safe permanent, indoor, homes before they, too, suffer a fate similar to Friskie’s. Friskie’s story illustrates several grievous problems with the treatment of animals in our society, particularly in our metropolitan area and suggests some new and deeply needed responses: 1. The first is the need for education about the care of animals. Cats, dogs, and other household pets must be kept indoors, especially in a city like ours, and they must be neutered and spayed. Any myths to the contrary only contribute to the overpopulation problem and to the suffering of countless animals. 2. The second is the need for commitment to our fellow creatures; people must not take animals and then discard them when they are tired. Animals are loyal, loving companions, dependent upon us for their welfare and safety. We must stop the disposable animal syndrome! 3. The third is the responsibility of citizens and governments to stop animal cruelty, to put in place stricter penalties, to counsel and educate youngsters from the first to act with compassion. 4. The fourth is the need to bolster support for the rescue-shelter networks, providing more public and private funding and more professional staffing to keep these humane-no kill groups alive and working. 5. The fifth is the need for more members of the veterinary community to commit themselves to the larger animal welfare issues. The response of the first vet to a trauma victim was, to my mind, unethical. Organizations like North Bergen Animal Hospital devote a good part of their energies to low-cost neuter-spay programs, animal rescue and adoption, and other humane issues, but then they are a very special and devoted team. 6. The last is the need for parents, schools, church organizations, youth groups to teach values to children at an early age. Among these should be the tenet of respect for animals. Animals are not on this planet for human USE or MISUSE. Animals enrich our lives and should be accorded the same are loyalty and love they show us. Carla Maria Sullwold