DOGGED LOYALTY TWO STRAYS FIND LOVE ON CITY'S MEAN STREETS.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

STUDIO CITY - Move over, Lady and the Tramp. You've got some real-life competition. His name's King Arthur and hers is Annie.

They're a couple of strays that used to live in the basement of an old abandoned home in the Crenshaw area of Los Angeles, across the alley from where the Hernandez family lives.

Arthur weighs about 70 pounds and is a shepherd mix. Annie weighs 30 pounds and looks something like an Australian cattle dog.

Alma Hernandez came home one day a few months ago from her housekeeping job in Hollywood, then saw Annie run into the street and get hit by a car.

What she and some of her neighbors saw next was the talk of the neighborhood for weeks.

Out of nowhere, Arthur ran into the middle of busy 51st Street and started walking in a slow circle around Annie's fallen body, protecting her from the oncoming traffic.

``Horns were blaring and people yelling, but he wouldn't get out of the street and stop circling her until every car was stopped,'' said Edlyn Hernandez, Alma's daughter.

``Then Arthur dragged Annie by the neck to the curb and safety.''

While Alma massaged and put a bandage on Annie's leg, her son, Dixon, and his girlfriend went into the house to get Annie some milk. With Arthur's approval, they moved Annie from the curb into their back yard.

``A few days later, Annie was up and walking again, and she and Arthur went back to their abandoned house,'' Edlyn said. ``After that, when you saw one, you saw the other. Always. They were inseparable.''

As in any good story, there has to be a villain. She lived a few houses down from Arthur and Annie's basement.

``About a month after the accident, Annie had a litter of nine puppies, and my mom was putting out food and milk for them,'' Edlyn said. ``But this woman was always taking it away because she wanted to get rid of the dogs.

``She didn't like Arthur. He growled at her every time she got close to Annie. He didn't trust her.''

Afraid for the puppies' health, Alma told her employer, who had seen a flier at her pet shop about a woman who rescued stray animals. Her name is Laurel Kinder, and she runs Kinder Family Animal Rescue out of Parker Pet Hospital in Studio City.

``I went out the next day and got the puppies, but I couldn't find Annie or Arthur,'' Laurel said Wednesday.

That meeting would come a few weeks later when Laurel got another call, this time from Edlyn. Her brother, Dixon, had just seen Arthur lying on a lawn down the block. He looked to be in pretty bad condition.

``Arthur was always getting into fights trying to protect Annie from other strays in the neighborhood, and I guess this time it was just too much,'' Dixon said. ``He was pretty chewed up.''

That's when the Hernandez family told Kinder about how Arthur had rescued Annie from the middle of the street after she was hit by a car, and how they were inseparable.

``Alma said something to me in Spanish, and I asked Dixon what it was,'' Laurel said. ``He said his mother was calling Arthur a noble dog. That's when we started calling him King Arthur.''

Arthur was patched up and he and Annie moved to Kinder's shelter and eventually found new homes.

``They'd both been adopted out separately, but dug themselves out of back yards inside of a day,'' Laurel said. ``They just want to be together.''

And so King Arthur and Annie are back with Kinder.

``Annie grooms and cleans him all day, and they talk,'' she said. ``They're so marvelous and well-behaved when they're together. Apart, it's a different story.''

So, it's just going to have to be a package deal, Kinder says.

After all, you wouldn't separate the Lady and the Tramp, would you?

How you gonna split up King Arthur and Annie? You're not.

Kinder can be reached at [phone]. Also, every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., she runs a pet adoption clinic at Parker Pet Hospital, 11723 Ventura Blvd. in Studio City.

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Photo:

(color) Annie, left, was dragged from the street to safety by King Arthur after she was hit by an auto.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer