Best Friends Animal Society’s Strut Your Mutt Aims to Grant Homeless Pets Wish: There’s No Place Like Home

Assets: Photos from past Strut Your Mutt events / B-roll  

October 3, 2024 (Salt Lake City, UT) -- Best Friends Animal Society’s just announced their annual fundraising dog walk, Strut Your Mutt, will take place in the animal welfare organization’s home state of Utah on Saturday, October 19. Best Friends, a leading national animal welfare organization working to end the killing of cats and dogs in America’s shelters in 2025, has been hosting the event annually for the past 29 years to raise money and save the lives of homeless pets in Utah.

Those participating in Strut Your Mutt can choose to support and raise funds for Best Friends or their favorite local participating animal shelter or rescue group Fundraising efforts will be celebrated with a group dog (and cat) walk on October 19 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Liberty Park. The walk will kick off at 12 p.m. with a strut around the park’s one-and-a-half-mile loop. People and pets of all ages are welcome to enjoy a stroll to save lives, with a fundraising goal of $100,000 for the event.

A one-time $35 registration fee is required to participate and includes a T-shirt, along with access to everything the event has to offer including live music from Nashville recording artist Kaleb Austin, a rock-climbing wall, a kid’s zone, Beer Garden, Wizard of Oz Themed pet costume contest, and more. All proceeds will be donated to the participating animal welfare organization of the participant’s choosing.  

“There’s no place like home — and that’s true for pets in shelters too, so come strut the yellow brick road to raise money to save the lives of the dogs and cats who need it most,” said Julie Castle, CEO, Best Friends Animal Society. “We launched Strut Your Mutt 29 years ago and are excited for this year’s event as we are on the cusp of making Utah the first no-kill state in the west.”

According to data from Best Friends, approximately 1,600 dogs and cats are killed in Utah shelters every year simply because they don’t have a space place to call home. To help the state become no-kill, earlier this year, Governor Cox declared 2024 “No-kill Shelter Year in Utah.” Now, it’s up to Utahns to help make this a reality, and raising funds and awareness for Utah animal welfare organizations is a simple way to get involved.

For more information on participating rescue groups and shelters, fundraising opportunities, walk information, and more, visit bestfriends.org/strut.

Thank you to our sponsors KSL Classifieds, Blue Buffalo, R.C. Willey, The Wave, and Now 97.9, who help make Strut Your Mutt a huge lifesaving success.  

To learn more about becoming a volunteer, please visit bestfriends.org/salt-lake-city.