WESTMINSTER BEST IN SHOW WINNER (of 2008)

Westminster Kennel Club 2008 Best In Show winner "Uno" the Beagle. Yes, really. Uno stood in his "stack" (primo showing off position) superbly, bayed at the Westminster crowd and wagged his tail ferociously at the judge the night he won. Yeah, he knew he had it in the bag. A mensch of a dog character and a truly gracious champion, he was lending his support to oppose a measure in Los Angeles that requires every single dog in that city to be sterilized, no exceptions, no exemptions. (Yes, there were impossible ever to attain so-called exemptions that required documents that don't exist in real life, plus punitively expensive fees for multiple business licenses mandated to accompany the request were these exemptions to exist.) Uno let every true dog lover there pet and photograph him

The measure, mandatory sterilzation at the egregiously unhealthy age of 16 weeks in puppies, (which guarantees that the slow-maturing, large dogs will die of osteosarcoma by an increased factor of 40% due to hormonal interruption of bone growth; i.e., your large dog will die at age 6 instead of age 10) insured no new generations of purebred dogs in Los Angeles ever could exist again, by law.

Defying all veterinary evidence and public outrage presented to the deaf ears of the city council, this travesty passed. Now the only dogs bred in L.A. are illegal dog-fighting pitbulls and pitcrosses, (L.A. animal services sites will confirm 70% are these) and the kill-rate in L.A. dog pounds changed from 12% to 23% with all the unsterilized dogs newly seized (unrelated to the concurrent recession, wherein neighboring California counties' rates only rose 3 to 5%.)