Help for Ailing Pet Owners : West Hollywood: Pets Are Wonderful Support, or PAWS LA, is a nonprofit group that assists people with AIDS in taking care of their pets.

Jim Gorka, 34, never thought the day would come when Christopher, his aging German shepherd mix, and Charlie, his playful keeshond pup, would be too much for him to handle.

But as he has watched his own strength dissipate due to complications of AIDS, he has had to come to grips with the painful reality that there are many things he can no longer do. And walking with his two furry friends is just one of them.

“It had become just another chore that I couldn’t do, and right now, I need to simplify life,” said Gorka, who these days finds the walk from his bedroom to the porch of his Hollywood apartment tiring.

But Gorka and the two dogs are still together.

Gorka got help from Pets Are Wonderful Support, or PAWS LA, a nonprofit group in West Hollywood that helps people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome to keep their pets while they struggle to deal with the illness playing havoc with their lives.

PAWS arranged for a volunteer to help walk Gorka’s dogs.

“Often a pet is the only friend (a person with AIDS) has left,” said Nadia Sutton, PAWS’ director who co-founded the group less than two years ago. “There is a special bond of unconditional love that exists between a pet and its owner. The animal doesn’t care how they look or how they feel, they don’t care if they lost their job. The animal is always there giving unconditional love. It’s a strong bond.”

Sutton is the only full-time employee at PAWS, coordinating the efforts of scores of volunteers to help about 25 people with AIDS and their pets each week.

In addition to finding volunteers for dog walking, PAWS seeks helpers to make home visits to feed the cat and change the kitty litter. PAWS has made arrangements with several local veterinarians to provide free health care for its clients’ pets. And even though PAWS is not an adoption service, it has helped find temporary and permanent shelter for numerous pets when their owners were no longer able to care for them.

“We try to give people a choice so they don’t have to get rid of their pets,” she said. “And giving someone a choice is also letting them hold on to their dignity.”

PAWS takes care of an array of pets from the ordinary to the exotic. Most are the usual dog and cat variety, but there have also been tropical fish, parrots, rabbits and even a python.

Sutton also keeps records of each animal’s peculiarities. “Booboo (a cat) does not like fish, and she likes to be stroked under the chin,” she said.

Such information has proven essential when the gray and black striped feline’s owner, Rashied Franco, 32, has had to leave for long hospital stays to undergo treatment for leukemia. “If I didn’t have PAWS, I would have had to give her away,” Franco said recently.

Veterinarian Martin Schwartz was so impressed with the work of PAWS that he volunteers his services to its clients at minimal cost or free of charge. “It’s extremely rewarding work,” he said. “People with AIDS don’t have the money to pay for their own medical bills, let alone their pets.”

For its part, PAWS operates on a tight budget--about $25,000 annually--based largely on donations from the public. The group this year requested more than $100,000 in funding from West Hollywood to expand and improve its efforts, but the request was turned down.

Jodi Curlee, an assistant administrator of the city’s Human Services Department said PAWS did not have an established track record, and it did not meet the criteria set to be given priority for city funding.

“But at the same time, the staff all felt it was doing wonderful things,” she said. “We didn’t feel we could recommend it for funding but we all felt like volunteering to help. It is the kind of voluntary program where you can do as little or as much as you can and still feel like you are doing something meaningful.”

That is what attracted Jeanne Barney, a free-lance writer, to the program as a dog walker. “So many of my friends were dying from AIDS. I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know what I could do,” she said. “Then I heard about PAWS, and I said to myself, ‘Now I can do that. I can walk someone’s dog and make the quality of their life a little better. That’s something.’ ”

Every day about 4:30 p.m., when Barney comes up the walk to Gorka’s apartment, Charlie and Christopher get excited. She usually brings them a snack. “Charlie pulls hard, he’s like a little punk rocker,” she said. “Chris just kind of lumbers along. If he were a musician, he would be a country musician.”

Gorka picked up Christopher nine years ago as protection in the tough gang section of Hollywood where he lives.

“I didn’t want just any dog, I wanted a good-size dog, not some little lap dog that would be yapping around me all the time,” he said.

Gorka received Charlie less than a year ago from his companion, Rick Edenfield, to keep up his spirits. “Charlie keeps him on his toes,” said Edenfield, who lives with Gorka.

For many, what PAWS manages to do is give a little comfort to those in distress.

Sutton said she will never forget Richard, who called her office in desperation one night about a month ago from his hospital bed with an urgent request.

“Richard was very worried about his cat, Joshua,” she said. “He said, ‘I’m in the hospital, and I don’t know when I’ll get out. My cat is in the apartment alone and has not eaten for three days. I need help.’ ”

Sutton picked up some cat food and kitty litter and rushed over to his apartment where she found Joshua--in good health--hiding under the bed. However, the apartment was in a shambles. So, after arranging for volunteers to make home visits to take care of the cat, she said she also arranged to have the apartment cleaned.

“Richard was so happy when he came home about 10 days later,” said Sutton, who kept in touch with him by phone. “He lived for another two weeks and then he died. When he died, they told me Joshua was lying on top of him--they were together.”

After Richard’s death, a new home was eventually found for Joshua.

“We never really met, but in that brief time we touched each other and became totally close,” Sutton said.

PAWS L.A. was modeled after similar programs in New York City and San Francisco. For information, to make donations or to volunteer, call 213 650-7297.