Saturday's update on this story:

There has been an overwhelming response and outpouring of sympathy for Daniel Dockery and his cat, Scruffy.

The Arizona Republic will continue to collect offers of donations of animals and money at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com, and forward them to Dockery.

Dockery said he is "overwhelmed" by people's generous offers and continues to hope for the return of Scruffy from the Arizona Humane Society.

"This is a very good thing," he said. "All these people are trying to help. I don't know what to say."

The story:

Raising a stray kitten from birth was more than just an act of kindness for Daniel Dockery. As he hand-fed and nurtured the tiny animal, he found that he was nursing his own way back into society.

A recovering heroin addict with a lengthy prison record, Dockery doesn't have much. A few friends, a caretaking job in Phoenix that provides him with room and board and a desire not to go to back to prison. For the past nine months, he said his closest companion has been Scruffy the cat.

Dockery, 49, said he started hand-feeding Scruffy even before it opened its eyes at 4 days old. He raised money to have Scruffy spayed. The kitten ate from fresh cans of tuna and slept on Dockery's pillow at night.

But two weeks ago, on Dec. 8, Dockery lost Scruffy after rushing the kitten to the closest veterinarian to his home: the Arizona Humane Society's Campus for Compassion at 1521 W. Dobbins Road. Scruffy's injuries, from being cut on a barbed-wire fence, were not life-threatening and easily treatable, Dockery said.

But Dockery said he couldn't immediately pay the estimated $400 veterinarian bill. He said instead of working with him, or waiting 24 hours for his mother in Michigan to wire the money, Humane Society staff told him the only way Scruffy would be treated is if Dockery "surrendered" the animal and signed away his ownership rights.

Fearing that Scruffy was in pain, Dockery said he signed. Now, on the day before Christmas, Dockery said he wonders if he ever will see Scruffy again.

"They call themselves the Campus of Compassion and Care. There's a big sign with those words on it over there. But I didn't get no compassion and I didn't get no care that day," Dockery said. "There wasn't any kind of confrontation, just a lot of tears, you know, when I signed those papers."

Arizona Humane Society officials would not discuss details of Dockery's case. In an e-mail statement, Bretta Nelson, public-relations manager, said her agency "empathizes with and understands how difficult the surrendering of Mr. Dockery's cat has been for him and his family."

But Dockery's mother, Donna Koning of Muskegon, Mich., said it was a decision that didn't have to be made. She said that when her son called from the clinic in a panic over Scruffy's fate, she talked to a clinic manager and offered to pay the bill immediately with a credit card over the phone.

"They refused to take it. They said they didn't want to do that because they've had trouble in the past," Koning said. "I offered to wire the money if they would hold the cat overnight. ... He (Dockery) could bring them the cash the next day. We offered to pay for boarding. But they didn't want to wait."

Koning said she believes that when her son told them he didn't have a real job, they assumed Dockery was homeless and couldn't care for an animal.

Questioning the clinic manager, Koning said she asked: "Don't you have enough animals in the shelter that you would not want to take a beloved pet from someone who clearly cares for it?"

When he turned over Scruffy to the clinic, Dockery said he asked repeatedly what would happen to her. He said he was told the cat would likely be put up for adoption. He said he asked staff members if he would be able to re-adopt the cat.

"They hemmed and hawed. They finally said maybe if I could go to the shelter and find her," Dockery said, adding that he scoured shelter adoption books and looked at every cat in every cage without locating Scruffy.

On Friday, Humane Society Executive Director Guy Collison said the agency will review its policy of not accepting credit cards over the phone as a result of the Dockery situation.

"It has been AHS' policy to not accept credit cards over the telephone ... due to a variety of circumstances that have arisen such as credit-card fraud, theft and card data protection," Collison said in an e-mail to The Republic. "Please know that I did reach out to Mr. Dockery this past Monday morning, Dec. 20, and have yet to hear back from him."

Dockery said he has not heard from anyone at the Humane Society. He said he "would have been down there in a second" if he had gotten any kind of call.

Neither Collison nor Nelson said where Scruffy is today.

"Due to the very sensitive nature of each individual's situation, it is (the Arizona Humane Society's) long-standing policy not to release the disposition of an animal once surrendered," Nelson said in her e-mail.

Nelson said the shelter takes in an average 121 animals per day, many of them surrendered by their owners. She said the Humane Society does not tell people what to do with their animals; rather, it offers options.

"The surrendering of a pet is a very difficult and personal decision, often taking place when people have nowhere else to turn," Nelson said in her e-mail.

Dockery said his life is an example of wrong turns. An addict for most of his adult life, he has done five prison stints for crimes related to his habit, including shoplifting, vehicle theft and possession. In 2010, Dockery was released from prison after a four-year sentence for possession with intent to sell.

He had been clean and sober for a few months when he found a stray pregnant cat. Dockery said the mother gave birth to a litter of four kittens. He helped find homes for two of the kittens and held on to Scruffy. The mother and the last of the kittens he brought to the Humane Society's shelter.

"She was the runt of the litter," he said. "She was really beautiful. And she was healthy. She was like my baby."

Dockery openly acknowledges that raising Scruffy helped him stay straight for more than a year, the longest stretch he has ever been clean.

"Absolutely, she's part of it. She's like, what do you call it? She's like a therapy to me, you know it," he said, adding that he is trying not to let losing Scruffy threaten his sobriety.

"When things like this happen, it's more difficult. But I know that's the worst thing I could do. The last thing anybody needs is for me to be running amok out there," he said. "I've just got to find her, man."

Robert Anglen investigates consumer issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. If you would like him to look into a possible scam, fraud or deception, e-mail him at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com.