CAMPAIGN NOTEBOOK

FOR THE BIRDS

Gruelling days on the campaign trail may be for the birds, but at least NDP Leader Andrea Horwath now has a place for them to eat.

Horwath was presented with an elaborate red oak birdhouse in Sarnia on Wednesday.

It was handmade by local craftsman Bob Stennett, who said he spent “95 to 100 hours” building it.

“It’s a special one I made for her,” Stennett said proudly.

“I do a lot for sick children and charities and special people. She is a very special person and I made it for her. You want to believe it — she’s going to be the premier.”

THE NOT-SO-MAGIC BUS

Even front-running campaigns hit bumps on the road.

On the hottest day of the year, the NDP’s campaign bus overheated and broke down on Hwy. 402 between Sarnia and London, near Warwick, Ont.

“I’m going to take a look under the hood,” joked Horwath as she bounded off the bus to examine the problem.

She later tweeted that it is “time for #FanBeltChange4Better.”

Journalists and campaign staffers were loaded aboard a fleet of hastily rented cars for a planned event in Kitchener.

SO DOGGONE CUTE

Call it puppy love. The NDP has featured some cute pups at their campaign stops, and on Wednesday, the PC tour stopped at a family farm near Sarnia with a 4-month-old beagle Snoopy, whose story stole everyone’s hearts.

Snoopy’s mother gave birth to a litter of 10 pups, and he was the sole survivor.

“The other pups just weren’t developed, they only lived for four or five days,” said Linda Reid, whose family hosted the Doug Ford campaign event in Reeces Corners.

“He was the biggest of the litter — he’s a fighter.”

They bought small baby bottles and fed him special formula from the pet store, around the clock — every four hours — starting when Snoopy was two days old.

“It was like having a baby,” she laughed.

“And he’d let you know it — he’d start crying” when he got hungry.

Snoopy was named by one of the grandchildren, “because she said he was always snooping around everything.”