Expectant Momma
Pregnant Yorkie traverses three provinces in a Freedom Convoy truck.
When Saskatoon resident Lynnette first mentioned the Freedom Convoy to Jake, her trucker husband, he didn’t say much. He sat in his chair, she says, listening.
If the government “is gonna [insist on a vaccine mandate] at the border,” she told him, “you know it’s coming to our doorstep. And if it comes to our doorstep, that’s our bread and butter.” It was then that he admitted he’d already missed out on two jobs because he’d declined to roll up his sleeve for a COVID vaccine.
“OK, it’s already on our doorstep,” she replied. Still, he remained non-committal. Later that day, she recalls, “he’s sitting in the chair there again, and I’m in the kitchen, and all of a sudden he says ‘Yep, we gotta go.’”
There wasn’t a lot of time to prepare, and then she remembered that one of the five dogs in their household was pregnant. “So I delivered the one litter. This was two days before we were supposed to leave.” When Keeley, another of her dogs settled into her lap on the sofa, Lynnette says a suspicious smell caught her attention. “I flipped her over just to look. You’re pregnant, too! Oh, no!”
She phoned a niece to ask if she could look after Keeley, but despite having helped on many occasions, the niece wasn’t available. Lynnette told Jake, “I’m not staying home!” Shrugging, he said they’d have to take the dog with them. “So, I pack up everything for birthing and away we went.”
As they drive across the country, Keeley is content to snuggle in a nest of blankets in the bunk section of the truck. Throughout their journey, friends ask after the expectant momma during Lynnette’s livestreams. On Wednesday, January 25th, she reports: “My little girl’s temperature’s still up. So that’s good. Once her temperature drops, I’ll be busy.”
On Thursday morning, Lynnette pans her camera toward Keeley and announces: “Her temperature is down, so these Convoy puppies are gonna be born at some point today.” This turns out to be a false alarm. After they’re welcomed into a private home in Cochrane overnight, Lynnette says:
It was great. My doggy got a little time out. Got to run around the house, she liked that. And her temperature’s back up today, and I’m glad about that. I was getting a little nervous about her being a week early. Something in her balance is a little upset…
Lynnette isn’t keen on the prospect of cutting umbilical cords solo in a truck barrelling down the highway. She also knows that many hotels don’t welcome pets. In the end, they’re in Ottawa a full week - first on the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, then on Kent Street - before the puppies are born.
She names them Convoy (later changed to Diesel), Freedom, Hope, Truckee, and Grizzly. The latter is a reference to Mark Friesen, the Grizzly Patriot about whom I wrote yesterday.
Truckers deliver ... anything.