Daily News from New York, New York • 65

METRO NEW: News Bureau (718) 822-1174 Fax (718) 822-1562 NYDailyNews.comnylocal low (tog wSttDo si Mg soot Bronx Chihuahua nurses orphaned kittens puppies She did good." The first time Poggi discovered Keebler's ability to lactate on demand was when one of the neighborhood's feral cats was hit by a car. "We didn't know she had kittens, but Keebler kept running around my feet and making me run in a certain direction. I heard the crying of kittens, and she kept annoying me. She showed me where they were," Poggi said. "First, I had to nurse them BY DORIAN BLOCK DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER MEET KEEBLER, the Bronx Chihuahua who nurses kittens and cares for pit bulls.

The spunky mother dog has saved 25 kittens born on Bronx streets by nursing them back to health and getting them in prime shape for adoption, said Dorothea Poggi, Keebler's owner. Poggi is on a mission to save raccoons and possums that have been displaced by con "i with a bottle, but in about four or five days, she had milk made. I had no idea she was going to do that." Keebler brown on top, white underneath and a fan of Kibbles 'n Bits may be an oddity in the struction of the Pepsi-Cola distribution facility being built in her Ferry Point neighborhood. She also works to domesticate the kittens of the neighborhood's feral cats. She has taken a class with The Ameri She'll take any animal and try to nurture it, Dorothea Poggi can Society for the Pre-vention of Cruelty to Animals through its Trap-Neuter-Return program, trying to control the neighborhood's wild cat population.

And, when she gets a litter of kittens, she finds them homes. Keebler, 9, has been Poggi's biggest helper, and has produced milk for the kittens even though she has not been pregnant in years. "If it wasn't for her, we would have had more trouble with the kittens," Poggi said. They would have been left with their mothers, and we wouldn't be able to train them and get them adopted. Bronx, but the Web site YouTube.com is crawling with videos of dogs nursing kittens, piglets and tiger cubs.

Keebler, however, would not nurse a litter of baby squirrels orphaned when their mother was hit by a car, but she did clean them and cuddle them for weeks, Poggi said. She also nursed two pit bull puppies that lost their mother. "I never liked Chihuahuas, but I think this dog is outrageous," Poggi said. "She's very nurturing. She'll take any animal and try to nurture it.

Imagine a power mom." dblocknycjaifyneivs.com Keebler the Chihuahua and three kitten friends kick back at home in Ferry Point, the Bronx. (Unisphere word to restore its misty mystique BY NICHOLAS HIRSHON DAILY NEWS WRITER LET THERE be water at the Unisphere again. Grand fountains that regularly shot H2O around Queens' unofficial symbol until water leaked into a nearby museum in recent years will be back on for good by late next summer, city officials said. Workers will fix pipes beneath the stainless-steel sphere early next spring to prevent flooding at the Queens Museum of Art and restore the misty mystique of the 1964 World's Fair icon. "The fountains bring an energy and optimism that the structure can't do itself," said Lawrence Samuel, author of last year's World's Fair tome "The End of the Innocence." Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski heralded the $1 million project funded by Borough President Helen Marshall as a "major reinvestment" in the park's core.

The ring of fountains was first installed so the water would obscure the Unisphere's tripod pedestal and make the 12-story globe appear to be floating in space. "If you see it at night, you'll know why it's important," said Marshall spokesman Dan Andrews. "It's magnificent, with the colored lights and water sprays shining on the world." Greg Godfrey, president of a Flushing Meadows-Corona Park watchdog group, said turning on the fountains which had recently been reduced to periodic sprays, mainly during the U.S. Open was a positive sign for the park's future. Lewandowski said her only concern was that park visitors may wade in the water and get hurt.

In the leadup to a fund-raiser for a nonprofit parks group a few years ago, high-ranking bureaucrats proposed surrounding the Unisphere with bushes or a fence, according to a source involved in the planning. Henry Stern, the city parks commissioner from 1983 to 1990 and 1994 to 2001, blasted any move that might obstruct the look of the landmark. He said a warning sign would discourage parkgoers from wading in the water. But Stern praised plans to fix the fountains, noting that they were always on during his tenure. "If there's no water, you might as well have it in a desert," he said.

"If there's a representation of the Earth, water should be a part of it." 1 Children play around the Unisphere in Queens. Photo by Jeff Haynes.