It can get lonely on the road, but Rebecca Washington, a long-distance trucker who is sometimes away from home for months on end, has Ziggy, Polly, Junior and Tucker along for the ride: her “rig dogs.”
“People call me the traveling zoo,” she said.
“We’re away from our families a lot of the time,” added Ms. Washington, 53, whose home base is Springfield, Mo., and whose children are grown with children of their own. “Animals are good companions, and walking the dogs at truck stops is a good way to lose weight and stay healthy. I take them out two at a time. It’s a routine.”
Long-haul trucking companies mostly don’t complain about on-the-road pets, and some even encourage them, because happier drivers are more likely to stick around. The nationwide driver shortage is acute, and the coronavirus only made matters worse.
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“Of the drivers I’ve interviewed,” she said, “I would say that the vast majority of them own pets, and many take them on the road.” Drivers who own their trucks have more leeway to take along a best friend, Ms. Miller said.
Asked if there were any regulations regarding pets on board interstate trucks, Duane DeBruyne, a spokesman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, had a simple reply: “No.” But some trucking companies impose weight limits on the pets or bar certain breeds, and others require a deposit against damage to company-owned trucks.
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