This day in history: Spokane City Council opted to let voters decide if stray pets should be sold for research to WSU. 50 years before, fair celebrated mutts

From 1975: The Spokane City Council was taking more heat over its policy to sell stray dogs to Washington State University’s veterinary school – so now it was sending the issue to voters.

The council voted to place a referendum on the November 1975 ballot asking for a yes or no vote on “selling unclaimed dogs to medical laboratories for experimentation or research.”

A citizens’ group had asked the council to ban the sales outright, but the group did not get exactly what it wanted. The council refused to “enact the law on its own,” but did vote to refer the matter to voters.

The group had previously presented the council with a 8,693-signature petition, asking the council to stop the sales.

From 1925: The Spokane Interstate Fair’s first Mutt Dog Show proved to be a loud, tail-wagging hit.

“The big excitement came when the “Mutt Special,” carrying scores and scores of children and their dogs … arrive outside the general admission (gate),” said the Spokane Chronicle, which sponsored the contest. “… Dogs and children all hung out of car windows as they neared the fairgrounds. There were big dogs, little dogs, fat dogs, lean dogs, dogs with long tails and dogs with practically no tails at all. However, they were dogs and were highly admired by the little ones who lead them.”

The winners would be announced the next day.

The fair was also holding its usual thoroughbred dog show, which had 500 entrants in various breeds.

Also on this day

(from onthisday.com)

1945: The first computer “bug” discovered by Grace Hopper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when she removed a moth from a relay with tweezers and taped it into a logbook.