Sea dog getting desert home

LOS ANGELES — 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 on a 48-foot boat and survived four months on tiny Fanning Island — 1,000 miles south of Hawaii — where his owners left him after their sailing boat ran aground last December.

Now the cocker spaniel, who is in quarantine on Oahu after being rescued April 9 by Norwegian Cruise Line workers and a bevy of other people, will be flown to Los Angeles to meet a man who desperately wants to adopt him: 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."

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.

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

Joslin said the quarantine facility requires 72 hours notice regarding flying animals. Hawaiian Airlines restricts flights to Las Vegas when animals are involved because of the heat there, Joslin said.

The story of Snickers begins with his original owners, Jerry and Darla Merrow, whose catamaran developed mast problems after setting out from California's Moss Landing, said Gina Baurile of the Hawaiian Humane Society.

The boat drifted to Fanning Island, a tiny Pacific atoll, where it hit a reef and the couple swam 200 yards to shore with Snickers and their macaw, Gulliver. They left the island soon after on a cargo vessel.

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

"They don't have the same concept of taking care of pets. Some dogs are eaten there," Baurile said.

Efforts to contact the Merrows 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.