For Terry Leichty, the worst part of Hurricane Katrina wasn't the water seeping into her New Orleans apartment. It wasn't the intermittent phone service or the lack of running water. It was the fact that several days after the storm swept the city, authorities forced Leichty, who is in her early 70s, to leave her dog behind.

One year later, the two are hundreds of miles apart.

The dog, Ah Boo, landed in the care of Puppy Angels, a Hopkinton-based rescue group. After giving his previous owner several months to reclaim Ah Boo, the group put him up for adoption. "The dog is with a very loving family. He sleeps in bed,"said Sherry Morrall, president of Puppy Angels. Leichty, meanwhile, settled in London, Ky., after being evacuated to Baton Rouge, La., for medical treatment.

Now, Leichty wants Ah Boo back. "Ah Boo was really all that she had, all that she cared about,"said Henry Fridley III, Leichty's son. After numerous discussions, Morrall has agreed to release the names of Ah Boo's current owners to Laura Allen, an attorney working to reunite displaced residents with their pets. If Ah Boo's new family doesn't return him to Leichty, they could face legal action, Allen said.

"There are a lot of different victims here," Morrall said. "We're all here for the same thing, which is animal welfare. Unfortunately, someone's going to be very unhappy."

Long after the floodwaters receded, disputes over pets evacuated from the storm are playing out across the nation.

Like Morrall, other New Hampshire rescue workers believed that after caring for Katrina animals for three months, they could put the pets up for adoption. But some residents who fled storm-ravaged areas are still working to track down and win back their pets. Clashes over ownership have generated a handful of court cases, and dozens more have been resolved without legal action.

"The law is absolutely muddled. . . . There simply is no law in the states where the dogs were," said David Favre, a professor at Michigan State University College of Law, who specializes in animal law.

To decide the disputes, "the law would look at both sides of it. One was the original owner using due diligence in trying to find the animal. (And) as the holder of the animal, you have to let the world know that you have the animal," Favre said. "At some point, the law would draw a line and say, 'You waited too long.'"

A former stray

Leichty adopted Ah Boo as a puppy, Fridley said. He was a stray, running around the neighborhood with a pack of older dogs. One rainy night, about three years ago, Leichty took in the golden-haired mutt.

When Katrina struck, Leichty's St. Charles Avenue apartment took in water. Despite calls for evacuation, Leichty stayed put. "She didn't want to leave without the animal,"Fridley said. It wasn't until several days after the storm - when the police went door to door - that Leichty left the city.

CNN's Anderson Cooper caught the scene: Leichty, who is legally blind, refused to leave Ah Boo. According to the show's transcript, authorities agreed to let her take Ah Boo, who isn't trained as a service dog. But away from the cameras, the two were separated, Fridley said. Leichty went to Baton Rouge, La. Later, she traveled to Little Rock, Ark., before landing in Kentucky, where she lives in subsidized housing. She won't speak with reporters, her son said, unless she's reunited with Ah Boo.

Ah Boo took a different path. His first stop was Tyler, Miss., where the rescue group Best Friends oversaw an emergency shelter, rescuing 4,500 to 5,000 animals in the storm's wake. Last November, Morrall traveled to Tyler, Miss., to help. "The level of insanity down there was amazing," she said.

When Morrall returned to New Hampshire, she had 27 dogs in tow. The group eventually took in 54 dogs, many of whom had been surrendered by their owners. For the rest, such as Ah Boo, Morrall signed contracts stating that Puppy Angels would keep the dogs in foster care for 90 days, so people could reclaim their pets.

Ah Boo's 90 days in foster care had passed by the time Fridley tracked him down. Robin Siegel, a volunteer working to reunite residents from hurricane-stricken regions with their pets, contacted him, and scoured the internet in search of the dog. Siegel said she spoke with about a dozen Best Friends case workers this spring before one agreed to forward the dispute to the group's legal department.

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