ANIMAL LOVER DEFENDS SHELTER; ANIMAL SERVICES DEPT. SEIZED 617 CRITTERS AT VAN NUYS SITE.

Byline: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer

Plastic shoes from the 99-cent store. Home haircuts. Never a movie or a meal out. Doris Romeo said she's given up everything to care for her beloved cats and dogs - all 617 of them.

So she said it was ironic, not to mention personally horrifying, that she was arrested and jailed Monday on suspicion of cruelty to animals following a raid at her illegal Valjean Avenue shelter for sick and homeless felines.

``They put me in jail with felons and murderers,'' Romeo said Tuesday, her voice quavering, ``all for having a heart, feeling the pain they feel, and loving them.''

If Romeo, a 50ish divorcee who lives in West Hollywood, indeed loved the cats, she had an odd way of showing it, according to officials with the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services.

At the three-bedroom $1,300-a-month rental home that Romeo converted into an animal ``sanctuary,'' city workers said they found dead cats in shopping bags, dying felines inside pet carriers atop heating pads, sick and emaciated animals roaming the building, and feces-smeared floors.

In all, the raid yielded 589 cats and 28 dogs, said Peter Persic, a spokesman for the Animal Services Department.

Romeo is due in court July 28. She was released from jail on a $20,000 bond Monday.

Capt. Barbara Fabricant of the San Fernando Valley-based Humane Task Force said that while Romeo's heart is in the right place, her sanctuary was overpopulated and understaffed. Romeo said she had one full-time employee, who lived on the premises.

``On the other hand, she didn't breed these animals. The fault lies with the people . . . who don't think they should spay or neuter their animals because it's not natural,'' Fabricant said.

On Tuesday, the animals were being examined - private veterinarians were recruited to help with the massive job - and are being housed throughout the city, Persic said.

Thirty-nine animals, all dying or extremely sick, were euthanized, Persic said.

Persic said Romeo has two options: to relinquish the animals to the city so they may be put up for adoption, or have them held as evidence in her court case. ``I will never give them the animals because they will euthanize them,'' she said.

City Animal Services Commissioner Gini Barrett said that Los Angeles has many animal ``rescuers'' who are well-intentioned but get carried away.

``We're looking at a cooperative effort between the city and the . . . community to try to identify these people at an earlier stage, and have an intervention team try to work with them,'' she said.

On Tuesday, Romeo returned to her 15,000-square-foot premises, which include the house and kennels in the back yard. Although the animals were gone, some of the stench remained, and flies buzzed around the yard, which was crowded with stacks of donated pet food, and old kitty houses, and spruced up with bougainvillea and hanging flower pots.

Romeo conceded that the place was not as clean as it should have been because her cleaning man had taken a much-needed day off.

But aside from that, Romeo said her animals got top-notch treatment.

She said her cats ate well, kept cool with an $8,000 air-conditioning system and all were spayed or neutered.

She said that if cats were sick, it was before she got them.

Romeo said she sank $50,000 of her own money into the sanctuary and subsidizes it with $8,000 a month, which she earns from a vegetarian catering company and a West Hollywood-based domestics agency.

Romeo has many supporters.

``She saved a lot of cats,'' said Mary Bauman, an office manager at the Fallbrook Pet Clinic in Woodland Hills. ``I had a cat here that had leukemia and she took that cat and totally turned it around.''

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Photo: Doris Romeo, owner of the private Pets for Life shelter in Van Nuys, said she's personally sacrificed to pay for the center.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News