Pooch Rescued From Remote Island

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Pooch Rescued From Remote Island


By SOLVEJ SCHOU,
AP
Posted: 2008-04-19
14:37:17
Filed Under: Nation News, Weird News
LOS ANGELES (April 19) - Snickers the Sea Dog is barely
more than a pup, but he's already an old salt. The 8-month-old pooch spent three
months adrift in the Pacific with his owners and a parrot until their 48-foot
sailboat ran aground in December on tiny Fanning Island, 1,000 miles south of
Hawaii. Snickers and Gulliver had to be left behind as their owners hitched a
ride on a cargo vessel.













Snickers, an eight-month-old cocker spaniel, was rescued from a tiny Pacific island by a
cruise ship's crew after four months of being stranded there. A Las Vegas man
has volunteered to adopt him. Click through the gallery for more animals in
the news.




Then in March, the SOS was sent out in a boating
journal that the orphaned critters were to be destroyed on Fanning, one of 33
scattered coral atolls that make up the remote island nation of
Kiribati.

As word spread, a bevy of people worked to rescue the cocker
spaniel and the macaw, including a man who desperately wants to adopt them:
retired Las Vegas resident Jack Joslin.

"I love animals," Joslin told The
Associated Press on Friday. "I had two dogs up until the middle of March. Then I
had to have my border collie euthanized. The day they called saying the ashes
were back was when I read the story (about Snickers). It occurred to me I could
do something."

On April 9, Norwegian Cruise Line workers rescued Snickers
from Fanning and dropped him off on Oahu island, Hawaii, where he will remain in
quarantine until he is flown to Los Angeles.

Hawaiian Airlines, moved by
the dog's survival story, has given the go-ahead on flying the animal for free
to the mainland, said Peter Forman, a Hawaii-based airlines historian who helped
negotiate Snickers' transport.

The process to rescue Gulliver, the
owner's macaw, is more complicated because it is an endangered animal and was
not registered. The Hawaiian Humane Society said that Gulliver couldn't be
brought back to Hawaii because of customs and quarantine issues, the Honolulu
Advertiser reported.

Forman said he expects Snickers to arrive sometime
in the next three days.

Snickers' original owners, Jerry and Darla
Merrow, had set out from California's Moss Landing but their catamaran developed
mast problems, said Gina Baurile of the Hawaiian Humane Society.

The boat
drifted to the tiny atoll, where it hit a reef and the couple swam 200 yards to
shore with Snickers and Gulliver.

Baurile said the pets were left in the
care of islanders.

"They don't have the same concept of taking care of
pets," Baurile said.

Efforts to contact the Merrows on Friday were
unsuccessful. Joslin said he has been unable to contact the pair, and Baurile
said she believes the Hawaiian Humane Society never tried to reach
them.

"The Merrows got to the point where they had to move on with their
lives," said Forman, who is friends with Robby and Lorraine Coleman, a couple
with a sailboat off Fanning Island who originally talked to a boating journal
about Snickers.

"The Merrows basically signed a release of ownership of
the dog," Forman said.

Robby Coleman started watching out for the dog and
parrot on the island, Forman said.

"Robby put out the SOS and a lot of
people got involved," Forman said.

Contacted by Joslin, the Hawaiian
Humane Society took the lead on Snickers rescue.

The organization worked
with Norwegian Cruise Line, and a ship was sent out to Fanning Island to pick up
the dog, said Norwegian Cruise Line spokeswoman Krislyn Hashimoto.

The
Hawaiian Humane Society provided pet carriers, flea treatment and food, Baurile
said.

The dog landed in Honolulu on Wednesday, cleared Customs and has
been in quarantine since, awaiting transport to Los Angeles, Hashimoto
said.

Getting the parrot off the island will be more difficult, said
Joslin, who wants to adopt the animal.

There is a plan to move Gulliver
to Christmas Island, near Fanning Island, and eventually to L.A., one of two
U.S. ports that accept exotic birds.

"Snickers is going to live with me,
I hope, for a long time," Joslin said. "And we're trying like hell to get the
bird back here."

What happened to snickers orig owner who was rescued...left the dog for 3mths...bad owner bad!...there is nooooooooooo wayyyyyyyyy I would leave that island without my peanut...snickers is such a cutie I wonder what kind of an adventure that puppy had on that island...makings of a movie.