Apparently, Florida vacations are so popular that dogs are traveling great distances on their own to get to the Sunshine State. See, just before Christmas last year, this golden retriever in Atlanta named Pepper got startled by some firecrackers and ran away.

Seems he skipped town and went AWOL, giving the slip to his dog-sitter while his owner, Elizabeth Carter, was on vacation with her family in Mexico. And now he turns up 400 miles away, in St Petersburg, Fla.

Jay Getman, an employee at a travel agency in St. Pete’s who found the dog outside the premises looking ragged and wretched in a thunderstorm, took him in, fed and cleaned him up. Getman took the flea infested and ragged Pepper to a vet who found a microchip which helped find and locate the dog’s owners.

After Getman called Elizabeth Carter, she drove all the way to St. Petersburg to pick up Pepper. The intrepid explorer probably hitch-hiked to Florida, cause his nails were way too long for him to have pawed his way across 400 miles.

Posted on October 2nd, 2008 by Thomas
Filed under: News