Los Angelina Sophie: "Yippee! No puppies for me!"

(For those of you of tender years, No Sex, Please—We're British was a British comedy that came out in the early 1970s.) In any case, yesterday marked a very momentous occasion in the ongoing struggle to alleviate our nation's terrible companion animal overpopulation problem and its attendant death toll. The Los Angeles City Council voted 14-1 in favor of a spay/neuter ordinance that would require that all dogs and cats over the age of 4 months be spayed or neutered. It even comes with thousands of low-cost or no-cost vouchers for people of modest means. Los Angeles is the largest city in the United States to have passed such an ordinance.

It was a hard-fought and hard-won battle, chiefly because of opposition from—you guessed it—the breeders. Even though this ordinance contains seven different types of exemptions, including one for breeders (all they would have to do is pay $100, buy a city license, and have their dog microchipped), the breeding community fought it tooth and nail. Just one more example of how so many breeders really don't care about any dogs but their own (and even the breeders' own dogs don't fare too well when they've got long tails or ears that the breeders feel like chopping off).

Currently, Los Angeles euthanizes about 18,000 dogs and cats in its animal control facilities every year. This is just tragic, and I hope that this ordinance will go a long way toward shrinking that sad statistic. Let's hope, also, that this fabulous new ordinance will set a precedent for other large cities in our country. If you would like to help bring about that idyllic future sooner rather than later, please check out PETA's Animal Birth Control Campaign for lots of ways to help.