Today we bring you part 2 of the tale of Snickers, “The world’s most famous cocker spaniel.” After Snickers and Gulliver, a parrot, were abandoned by their owners — who had shipwrecked on Fanning Island, Kiribati, in December 2008 — cruisers Robby and Lorraine Coleman contacted Latitude to see if anyone could help. Jack Joslin, a resident of Las Vegas, answered the call through a ‘Lectronic Latitude. He wrote the following in the voice of Snickers:

The man in Las Vegas was able to use the Internet to try and organize a rescue. He thought it would be easier to save Gulliver since he was born in the US and would have a leg band that proved it. The man was so wrong! Gulliver didn’t have a leg band at all, and what’s more, blue-and-gold macaws are listed with CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). Yeah, I know that’s a lot of big words, but it meant only an authorized sanctuary or zoo could rescue Gulliver.

But the port veterinarian in Honolulu told the man in Las Vegas that it would be easy to save the dog (me). Easy turned out to be, well, not so easy after all. He told the man in Las Vegas that he should contact the director of the Hawaiian Humane Society, Rigo Neira, and ask for their help. The man in Las Vegas explained that he’d been told by the port vet that I would have to be caught, bathed, and treated for fleas before I could enter Hawaii. Luckily, I didn’t know any of this at the time! I still growl every time I hear the word bath!

The problem was that the only way I could get from Tabuaeran [or Fanning Island] to Hawaii was aboard a boat, and there weren’t any. Well, there was one possibility the man in Las Vegas found out about. Because there was something called The Jones Act, which says that any foreign cruise operator wanting to offer cruises in US waters must make a foreign port call during a cruise to satisfy the Act’s provisions. Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) wished to cruise Hawaii, and since Tabuaeran was the nearest foreign port outside Hawaiian/US waters, they would steam the 1200 miles to Fanning Island, let the cruise passengers go ashore for four hours, then return to Hawaii. There was just one problem: NCL had no desire to get involved in the rescue of a dog from Tabuaeran.

The man in Las Vegas called everyone with NCL who would talk to him and tried to explain the seriousness of the situation, but was getting nowhere. When he explained this to Rigo, he laughed and said not to worry. He was certain that NCL would cooperate. What Rigo knew was that a few years earlier, an NCL cruise ship had been the nearest vessel available to render aid to a stricken cargo vessel that was floating upside down in the Pacific with the entire crew and the ship’s dog atop the overturned hull. The NCL vessel rescued the crew, but left the dog running back and forth on the hull as they steamed away. Unfortunately, many passengers aboard the cruise ship captured that sight with their camcorders, and when the NCL vessel docked in Honolulu it wasn’t the good deed of saving the crew that made the news so much as the outrage over the poor dog’s being left behind and with lots of heartbreaking video to prove it! Rigo simply reminded NCL of the horrible PR that episode had earned them, and explained that saving this other dog (me) would go a long way toward repairing that damage.

The Pride of Aloha dropped anchor off Tabuaeran and the passengers and several crew came ashore. Among them was the ship’s doctor, whom Captain Hoyt had instructed to assess my state of health. She gave me a cheeseburger to get on my good side, then gave me the once-over. When she declared that I was in good health (if a bit skinny), another crew member who had been tasked with cleaning me up took over. His name was Mark. Maybe it wasn’t the most stylish grooming job ever done on a cocker spaniel, but it was good enough, I guess. Mark dusted some flea powder on me at the end, then it was aboard the tender for the ride to the ship.

When we docked in Honolulu at the end of the cruise we were met by a whole bunch of reporters from all kinds of media. Then I zipped through customs, my plastic kennel was put in the back of a van and I was taken to the Hawaii State Veterinarian’s office. It might have been a lonely time caged up there in the quarantine facility except for one thing. Remember, there were a lot of people who were desperately trying to rescue me from Tabuaeran, and one of them was a beautiful woman who lived on Oahu. Her name was Laureli. Before I left Honolulu, Laureli wrote on my plastic kennel, “Our little Hero.” It seems to me that she and lots of other kind humans were the real heroes! So the next day Laureli’s sister put me in her convertible and off we went to Las Vegas. Late in the afternoon on Sunday, April 20, 2008, I arrived at the Summerlin home of the man from Las Vegas. I was finally home.

[The people at Latitude wrote all about me, and Gulliver too! After things didn’t look good for Gulliver, he was finally rescued from Fanning and brought to Arizona.]

Snickers (also known as Dr. Curly Bobby Roberts, or Bud Bundy, or just Bud) passed away on March 5. We’ve asked this question before, but thought it fitting to pose again: If you know of any remarkable sailing pets that have survived the highs and lows of the sea — or if you know of any noteworthy people or organizations that have taken up the cause of sailing animals in peril — please let us know.