A Puppy and the Power of Hope (or A Young Dog and the Sea) – a two-part story –
When Mimi and I wrote Door to a Lasting Marriage we originally sub-titled it The ABCs of a B+ Marriage. (A+ would be saying too much. B+, too little; we were too poor to paint and too proud to whitewash.) But we did arrange the chapters alphabetically knowing our focal point would be our chapter on Differences. Had it not been for that important D word I would have been tempted to write a chapter on Dogs. Presently it’s our cocker, Mala, but our family has always had at least one dog — not just for the 62 years of our married life but the years before in our families from which we came. Frisky, Corky, Blondie, Mutt, Oopy, Mose, Pooh, Abby, and many more — excluding of course Smuff, P.J., Plinky, and the rest of our feline gang that would have made for an interesting C chapter if Children were not so important — still have a place in our collective hearts. So naturally, in 2002, I became interested in a “local” puppy that overnight became the focal point of our nation and beyond. I saved every Honolulu Advertiser clipping and every Hawaiian Humane Society bulletin about a young dog and the sea.
Even as the term K9 speaks of dogs, that number 9 curiously surfaces in this dog story (mostly associated with the number 1) — especially here at the beginning. If it hadn’t been for Covid-19 with its depressive and despairing nature I wouldn’t be telling this story (coincidentally on April 19). And the story itself would have never captivated millions if it hadn’t occurred just 9 months after 9/11 when our nation was in a funk and the word hope seemed elusive. It happened 19 years ago about 900 miles off the coast of Hawaii — this harrowing, miraculous, nearly 9-week saga of a 29 pound two-year-old mixed-breed terrier named Hokget.
It was April 2nd. Hokget sat at the feet of her master and ship’s captain when he mustered, for his crew of ten, from a spark of hope — a spark that flickered out the moment he ended his impassioned speech — a plea to hold on, that as long as they were alive there was hope. But Captain Chung Chin-Po knew better. There was no hope. The fire aboard the Taiwanese tanker, the Insiko, that killed one crew member and knocked out all power, communications, and lights had rendered the ship non-operational. The ship, the size of a football field, had been adrift for just over 19 days. Only one other ship had been sighted, but to no avail. Food and water was depleted. It was mid-night in every sense of the word when it happened. Had Chung not seen the cruise ship and fired his flare, the Norwegian Star might have cut the tanker in half.
As the eleven men were brought aboard the Star, the few who saw it cheered during what they said was a heartwarming experience — while 3,000 passengers and crew members slept. Alas, Hokget (of whom most onlookers were unaware) could not be brought aboard due to strict quarantine rules. But one little bark did it. A Star passenger who heard the bark contacted the Honolulu Humane Society immediately upon docking (the Star having aborted its usual route). It was a call to arms. An International Humane Society Conference happened to be meeting that week in Miami, Florida. A phone call from Honolulu to the Hawaiian contingent appealing for the $50,0000 it would take to rescue a little puppy, adrift alone on a huge ship in an immense ocean miles from shore, struck a chord in their compassionate hearts. The money was raised in 30 minutes.
Two days later an American Marine Company salvage ship left Honolulu to find a little dog in a big ocean. The 48-hour search involving powerful radar and 16,000 square miles of ocean — covered by CNN, the Associated Press, and the British Broadcasting Company — revealed nothing. Even the U.S. Navy, volunteering its latest technology as part of an aerial exercise, failed to find the ship. All rescue teams returned to Honolulu empty handed. It was assumed the damaged Insiko had sunk — and with it all hope.
By now phone lines at the Hawaiian Humane Society were jammed with thousands of inquiries from all over the nation. Letters, emails, and donations from almost all the states in the union, two U.S. territories, and four foreign countries converged on the Humane Society. One letter responding to the huge effort to rescue Hokget expressed the sentiment of all: Thank you for pulling my heart strings, and reminding me of all the hope there is still left in the world.
And that hope would revive again. A Japanese fishing boat had sighted what it thought was the Insiko, but because of an approaching squall and low fuel it had to return to port without confirming the sighting. But a ray of hope!
A Puppy and the Power of Hope (or A Young Dog and the Sea) — part two —
With that encouraging news, American Marine immediately contacted other fishing boats in the area. Some boats actually quit fishing in order to join the search — a rare and expensive response indeed! Days went by. Nothing. Suddenly word came of a sighting. The location stirred up the U.S. Coast Guard. Before, the Insiko was in waters outside their jurisdiction. Now the Coast Guard was obligated to get involved because Hokget and her ship she so joylessly inherited were drifting toward the Johnston Atoll, a U.S. Wildlife Reserve protected by law from all wayward vessels. An environmental emergency fund was tapped and the U.S. Coast Guard was now in the hunt and hope followed big time.
A lady in Kailua, Oahu — an avid dog lover — can’t sleep. She’s having nightmares about a little puppy alone on a ghost ship in a big ocean. She’s the granddaughter of Hawaii’s Prince David Kawananakoa and a woman of action. She chartered a Gulfstream jet and donated the money for the crew to join the search by air along with the Coast Guard’s C-130. After a 50,000 square mile search, it was the C-130 with its highly sophisticated radar that sighted the Insiko. Getting closer, the C-130 crew spotted the dog running across the ship’s deck. They swooped down and dropped all their in-flight snacks on the deck wondering if dogs eat Granola bars, pizza, and fruit. The C-130 returned to Honolulu and this time it was the U.S. Coast Guard that hired the American Marine Company to salvage the ship. Hope shined brightly — for a while.
Two fishing boats were the first to arrive at the Insiko, but the news they radioed back to Rusty Nall (Vice-President of American Marine and liaison with the Coast Guard) was not good news to him. They said when Hokget saw them she ran into the engine room and disappeared. Nall knew there was a ten foot drop just inside that engine room door. Nall lost hope saying, “This is when it just felt so futile.” But he heard again that night when he got home the same question he’d been hearing every night,” Daddy, did you find the doggie?” It was the hope of his 9-yr-old (there’s that number again) daughter, Morgan, that kept him going.
Three resolute crew members from the fishing boats swam to the Insiko and used a rope ladder to board the tanker. They yelled for Hokget — top to bottom, bow to stern. No dog. They left food and returned to their boats thoroughly discouraged. It was then that an important detail surfaced. Everyone had thought the puppy was a male named Forgea. Insiko’s Captain Chung — who had bottle fed the puppy from infancy and pampered it as his constant companion — spoke in a Chinese dialect, the only language to which the dog responded. But the others spoke Mandarin and Forgea is the Mandarin for Hokget. So it became a whole new ball game when the world learned that the boy-dog Forgea was a girl-dog named Hokget. No wonder she didn’t respond when the men shouted “Forgea!”
Now the American Quest, under Coast Guard contract, immediately left Honolulu equipped with a dog trap, plenty of treats, and a hambone — all courtesy of a hopeful Human Society. The Quest’s mission: To prevent the Insiko’s fuel tank from rupturing and to find a little dog named Hokget — dead or alive. Five days later news came back from the Quest to an anxious Humane Society and to a waiting world that Hokget was in hand — retrieved with a sun-scorched nose from a hot storage room but alive and well.
All but one national network greeted Hokget on Honolulu’s pier 24. An invitation for Hokget to appear with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show was turned down due to Hawaii’s quarantine rules. But on May 3, 2002, this little puppy stole front page from the top story of a U.S. Navy Command exchange — which happened concurrently on a pier near her — involving one of the largest military commands in the world. That was relegated to page 3 while Hokget’s picture graced 1A. But what could be more commanding than the resurrection of hope that was dead. Some protested that the six-figure cost could have been spent on needy people. I think it was — hungry people. People hungry for hope. Hope deferred (8 times, i.e. 9 lives — move over cats) makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12). BTW, the Mandarin for Hokget means happiness, good fortune, blessing, all that is good. In short, a tree of life.
Recently I heard a woman’s God-story of her family’s prayers that God would lead them, at the dog pound, to the dog He wanted them to have. She said, “It seems a small thing but a dog in the family can teach so much about God. God answered our prayers. Mary Poppins (her name) is far from a perfect pet, but we love her unconditionally. Nothing she does can change that.” It’s a metaphor in reverse — we as God and the dog as us replicates God’s love for us. Little wonder that the word “dog” in reverse is “God.”
