Florida woman has her claws out. She is fighting a country council to keep her 200 cats, a tussle that has raised the interest of the Dr. Phil Show.

The phone call, like so many others made to Kristy Grant's rural Florida home, was from a stranger with an unwanted cat.

"I'm outside your front gate," the woman told Grant. "I've got a kitten. If you don't take her. I'm bringing her to the Humane Society."

Grant never hesitated. "I'll be right there, "she said.

In eight years, Grant has never turned away a cat in need. From her 10-acre, thickly wooded ranch in quiet Pierson, this second-grade teacher is living out her dream of providing a home to more than 200 abandoned cats.

Now those cats may end up costing Grant everything - from her house to her credibility. The Volusia Country Council has ordered her to get rid of all but four cats, saying she is violating zoning laws and creating a public nuisance.

She's facing financial peril caring for the cats is costing about $500 a month, and she borrowed against her house to pay for a lawyer to help her fight the county.

She has drawn some criticism in her job at Mclnnic Elementary in DeLeon Springs, Florida, for bringing cats to school, where her second-graders collect coins for animal causes and wrote letters of support for her.

And she's worried about the possible fallout from her upcoming appearance on the Dr. Phil show on which Dr. Phil McGraw labeled her an animal hoarder - a mentally ill person who collects animals - and Grant says, played a tape of her swearing at a neighbors who doesn't like her cats.

Still, Grant is determined to fight. "These cats are my family, "she says. "I promised when I took them I that I'd look after them and I'm not giving up."

Grant's cats have free rein in her home. They lounge on kitchen counters, bask lazily on the front porch and prowl in the woods outside. A whimsical sign in the living room says it all: "Cats are like potato chips. You can't have just one."