COMMITMENTS : A Psychic Lets the Cat Out of the Bag : Pets: She thought T.C. was lonely. But after pawing through a gantlet of experts, she discovered that her kitty just needed something to do.

Alone and unseen, she dashed across the living room, sprang over a miniature stuffed veterinarian and landed on the answering machine. Seconds later, the gadget met the floor and spewed its guts into the hall.

After surveying the mess--a daily occurrence--29-year-old architect Kryste Dawson decided that all the gourmet cat food and spending sprees at the Crazy Cat Lady store on Melrose had failed.

Her kitty was lonely.

But what she thought would be a quick trip to the pound to find a soul mate for T.C.--short for The Cat--turned into pet adoption Hollywood-style, complete with consultants, agents and even psychics.

There were no kittens to be found in the shelter. PetCo’s adoption day turned up nothing. She fell in love with an exotic hairless kitten at the Beverly Center--until she saw the $800 price tag.

Disappointed, Dawson turned to the classifieds, where an ad promising “kittens, kittens, kittens” jumped out at her. She hurriedly dialed the number.

June Averseng, a self-professed “voice for animals” and experienced cat agent, answered the phone and started to ask questions.

“I use my own animal instinct. If they sound OK, I’ll have them come to my house to see what I have,” Averseng said.

A former secretary, Averseng spent all of her 1994 tax refund taking abandoned cats to the vet. A Westside wine shop she owns with her husband keeps her 2-year-old hobby afloat. And while she doesn’t charge for her services, she requires clients to keep her up to date on adoptees.

Intrigued, Dawson asked if she had any kittens. Unfortunately, Averseng replied, most of her furry charges were older and abandoned by owners who couldn’t take them along to new residences because of rules banning pets.

Certain she did not want to inherit a kitty that had picked up someone else’s bad habits, Dawson contacted the next person on the agent’s list of 15 Los Angeles area pet rescuers--Doris Romeo.

Romeo insisted on visiting T.C. before considering Dawson’s request. She even asked for Dawson’s veterinarian’s name and phone number.

Romeo boasts of operating the only shelter in Southern California where about 200 feral and tame cats live in harmony--albeit in separate rooms of what once was a 10,000-square-foot home. And she’s very finicky about who adopts her tenants.

Hoping that Romeo’s visit would be the last hurdle, Dawson agreed. The next day, Romeo arrived in a Mercedes packed with bags of litter and opened sacks of cat food. She snooped through Dawson’s one-bedroom apartment--jiggling window latches, peering into closets and eyeing the tall antique easel in the living room.

As T.C. rolled around on her shoes and purred, Romeo told Dawson her story.

Five years ago, she rented a home in a nondescript industrial area in the San Fernando Valley to serve as a nonprofit shelter for cats rescued from Hollywood Freeway overpasses, train tracks in El Monte and back alleys in Beverly Hills. Every penny from both her vegetarian catering business and a cleaning service for celebrities goes to support it.

Romeo has taken in cats that are too wild to tame or that were ill, including Maine coons, Siamese, calicos, tabbies and Persians. But much to her chagrin, Dawson discovered that she would never have a chance to visit the shelter, where volunteers use 600 pounds of litter, 60 cans of wet food and 40 bags of dry food each day.

Romeo refused Dawson a cat after learning that T.C. is declawed. One of her rules about adopting out her tenants is that they must not be declawed, she said, and a cat with claws could hurt T.C.

Annoyed to be right back where she started from three weeks earlier, Dawson decided to try Averseng one more time. Averseng pointed out that kittens are scarce in spring and urged Dawson to call animal psychic Carol Gurney to figure out whether T.C. was lonely or just bored.

Skeptical but feeling a little desperate, Dawson ran the idea by some of her friends. “Maybe she can find out why Josie goes crazy every time she sees eggs,” one gibed. “I’ve always wondered whether Zomba likes lamb better than beef,” another joked.

But despite their scoffing, Dawson’s friends urged her out of curiosity to contact the psychic. So, with hesitating fingers, Dawson dialed the phone yet again.

Gurney, a former advertising executive, wasted no time in getting down to business. The fee would be $45, upfront, and she would need a detailed description of the animal, its home and its owner.

She would not, however, need to visit T.C. to read her mind. To communicate telepathically with her clients--which have included lizards, dogs, potbellied pigs and tortoises--she taps into the energy “released by animals like radio waves.”

Dawson was dubious that Gurney could size up T.C. at all, let alone from her home in Agoura, about 30 miles away.

“If she can tell me my carpet is purple and I own a $3,000 leather chair I won at a party at the Pacific Design Center, maybe I’d believe this would work,” Dawson said. But at the goading of friends, she spent a lunch hour on the phone with Gurney describing T.C.’s penchant for tipping over glasses and other quirks.

Gurney told Dawson to call back in several days. Then she went to a quiet place in her house and meditated.

Several days later, Gurney confirmed Dawson’s first inkling: T.C. craved companionship.

Problem was, it wasn’t a feline friend she needed, but Dawson.

Dawson, who had worked a lot of overtime in the past several months, listened warily to the diagnosis.

“She wants to develop her relationship with you,” Gurney said.

And those terrible tantrums?

“T.C. needs an outlet for her creativity.” Often, Gurney said, pets mirror their owners’ frame of mind and reflect whatever frustrations their masters are feeling. Dawson admitted feeling stifled creatively--and T.C. was certainly creative about wreaking havoc on the apartment.

The psychic’s recommendation?

“T.C. has a strong mind, but it’s not being used. She needs to be challenged. She needs a job.”

Worn out by her monthlong search, Dawson decided that it couldn’t hurt to give T.C. some responsibility. So she lifted the lean gray cat onto her lap and assigned her the duty of official greeter--a job the kitty embraced wholeheartedly by sitting at the screened-in kitchen window and meowing loudly at passersby. The answering machine was even spared--for a few days.

Her yowls prompted a neighbor cat to stop by and visit.

T.C. got her friend after all.