A few weeks after we officially adopted Mordecai and Ezra, the two cats left in front of our house in a vegetable box, we took them to meet our regular veterinarian, Dr. Thomas Carreras. Dr. Carreras has taken care of all our animals since we moved to Staten Island, including a baby squirrel we found on our basement floor and a puppy we discovered tied to a tree.

It had snowed the night before, and the street in front of the animal hospital hadn't been plowed yet. The sanitation worker who was sharing the waiting room with us pointed out that, since that part of Dongan Hills Avenue was a dead end, they had to bring in a front loader to get rid of the snow. Garbage-truck plows wouldn't be able to maneuver, he said.

The sanitation worker had a beautiful, tall, slender, slightly unhappy boxer with him. “This guy is a purebred,” he said, “and he has some genetic problems. My son has a boxer, too, but his boxer was a stray and he's healthy. We found him on the street.”

“You did? We found these guys on the street, too,“ Victor said.

He nodded. “ Me and my son both work for the Sanitation Department, and he found his dog running around loose on his route.”

“The Sanitation Department rescues dogs?” I asked.

“Yeah, but not officially. We take them back to the depot, and then someone usually takes them home. It happens a lot.”

“These two cats were sitting in a box I had put out for recycling. We found them on a pick-up day,” I said, looking at him a bit suspiciously.

He jerked his head ever so slightly and smiled faintly. Then the technician came to the door and called him and the boxer inside.

Victor and I looked at each other, then at Ezra and Mordecai. They looked back. They didn't say a word.

What to Do If You Lose an Animal

If you lose a pet, here are some things you can do. Note that cats tend to stay within a block or so of home, but dogs will range for miles. Also, you usually have to leave a message at many of the phone numbers below, but you will be called back.

•  Call the Center for Animal Care and Control ( CACC) as soon as you realize your dog or cat is missing. The Staten Island CACC sends unclaimed animals to Brooklyn within a day or so, and although they agreed to stop killing healthy animals, your animal may get caught up in the bureaucracy. He or she is also likely to get sick from a long wait in the pound. The number is (718) 984-6643.

•  Call all the local veterinarians. People sometimes bring animals without tags to veterinarian offices.

•  Call local animal rescue organizations. Two are the Staten Island Council for Animal Welfare (SICAW) and Pet Lovers United Together as One (PLUTO). SICAW puts rescued cats up for adoption at Petsmart on Forest Avenue. Sicaw numbers are (718) 448-3525 and (718) 761-6678. PLUTO puts their animals up for adoption at Petco on Forest and Richmond Rd. The PLUTO phone number is (718) 227-0553.

•  You can put ads in the Staten Island Advance and on Staten Island Community Television (channels 34, 35, 56, and 57). To put a lost-or-found pet notice on cable TV, call them at (718) 727-1414 or fill in the form at http://www.sictv.org/ctvvideograms forms.html .

•  Carry flyers around your neighborhood and hand them to people, especially people walking dogs. Note that if you put flyers on telephone poles, the city will take them down again. It's considered a form of littering.

•  And finally, ask the mail delivery people and the sanitation guys. You never know.