The residents of one small California town didn’t think it odd when they saw their mayor begging for beef jerky, sniffing trees, rolling in the dirt, running after sticks, or even standing around with his tongue hanging out and drooling. That’s because their mayor was a Labrador retriever and, though this may or may not be unusual behavior for a politician, it is acceptable when the politician is a dog.
Bosco was elected mayor of Sunol in 1983 and served his community faithfully for eleven years, until his death in 1994. The town – which had a population of about a thousand people at the time of his demise – is thirty miles southeast of San Francisco and fifteen miles north of San Jose.
It all began when two Sunol residents – “Honest Paul” Zeiss and Wolf Sauer – were hanging around the Sunol Lounge and got into a lively discussion over who had the most friends in town. This progressed to a discussion of which one of them would be elected mayor if the town ever needed one. Soon they had each launched their campaigns. Not satisfied with either of the two candidates, a third patron of the bar named Brad Leber entered his dog, Bosco “Boss” Ramos, as a candidate.
Campaign fliers were distributed around town, T-shirts appeared, and campaign promises were printed on the front page of The Sunolian. According to Brad Leber, Bosco - the founder of the Puplican Party – stood for a bone in every dish, a cat in every tree, and many more fire hydrants. He also pointed out that Bosco didn’t drink, smoke, or chase women, though he did sometimes chase cars.
When election day finally arrived, Honest Paul landed seven votes and Wolf forty-five, but Bosco was the clear winner with seventy-five. The next day, Wolf declared his intention to run for the position of dogcatcher. News of Bosco’s victory was picked up by the wire services, and the story was distributed as far away as China.
A few years later, Bosco was again in the news when he was reported missing after failing to show up for a television interview. Actually, he disappeared several times. Once a couple from the nearby town of Fremont took him and held him in their garage until the publicity surrounding his disappearance prompted them to return the mayor to his grateful constituents. Another time he fell asleep in the back of a van and wound up in Oregon. And then there was the time when an animal control officer picked up His Honor and hauled him off to the pound.
Besides giving interviews to the media, this international celebrity made numerous appearances in parades and presided over Sunol’s annual bed races. He also got into some nasty brawls with some of Sunol’s other canine residents, and he fathered several illegitimate children. He was serving his sixth term in office when he passed away.
Bonus:
From the Wikipedia article on Bosco:
He appeared with his owner, Tom Stillman, as a contestant on the game show 3rd Degree, where the panelists failed to guess Bosco's occupation.
Source:
Stephens, John Richard. “Odds and Ends.” Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 143-44. Print.
Further Reading:
If you enjoy this type of content, please consider donating to my Patreon!
No comments, yet...