What started as a small dog walk event in Utah more than 20 years ago has grown into a multi-million dollar fundraiser benefiting hundreds of shelters and rescue groups around the country.
Best Friends Animal Society, the flagship organization for the no-kill movement in the United States, has taken Strut Your Mutt beyond its Salt Lake City birthplace to 12 different cities – now including Pacific Palisades.
Strut Your Mutt allows many organizations to raise their annual operating budget through this Best Friends event. Funds raised through Strut Your Mutt are utilized locally to fund adoption programs, spay/neuter services and other life-saving programs, which dramatically impact the number of pets entering and leaving the shelters. Last year, nearly $1.7 million benefitted approximately 230 animal welfare groups. The 2014 goal is to raise a grand total of $2 million.
On Saturday, Sept. 6, Palisadians and their four-legged Fidos will take to the pathways at Will Rogers State Park for an early-evening twilight 1.9 mile walk or 2.25 mile fun run for participants and their dogs, followed by an outdoor festival with activities for humans and canines alike.
“This year, Best Friends is celebrating its 30th anniversary. When we started, the conventional wisdom was that killing homeless pets was an unfortunate but unavoidable fact of life. Every day some 45,000 animals were being killed in our nation’s shelters,” said Gregory Castle, Best Friends’ chief executive officer. “Best Friends was one of the very first organizations to challenge the idea that killing animals in shelters was acceptable. Because of a lot of hard work through the years by Best Friends and other organizations, the daily number has dropped to 9,000, but we are committed to reducing that number to zero.”
For three decades, Best Friends Animal Society has held to their conviction that it is unacceptable for healthy cats and dogs to be killed for no reason other than lack of space at the shelter.
“We are a nation of animal lovers and as an organization, we have committed to working together to save all of these animals from the needless killing that occurs for 9,000 cats and dogs a day across America,” said Marc Peralta, executive director, Best Friends Animal Society, Los Angeles.
“Palisadians can do a lot,” Peralta said. “They can volunteer for a local rescue or humane society, adopt from a rescue or shelter instead of buying a pet from a breeder or pet store, donate to local groups and rescues who support and operate no-kill policies, attend governmental meetings and speak up for no-kill policies and support candidates for public office who support no-kill and no kill practices to just name a few.”
In addition to being a leader in the No Kill movement for the past 30 years, Best Friends is the only national animal welfare organization solely focusing on ending the killing of healthy and treatable pets in our nation’s shelters – making it one of the most trusted organizations in need of support.
Their singular mission to eliminate the killing of healthy animals is gaining more and more support every day, Peralta said.
“Animal welfare, led by organizations such as Best Friends, has made incredible strides nationally and in LA in the last 30 years. When we started Best Friends in the early ‘80s, over 17 million cats and dogs were being killed annually. Today it is estimated at 3 million,” he said. “In LA, we have just celebrated the lowest year of shelter killing in the history of our wonderful city, led by Best Friends’ NKLA initiative. Over 230 communities in the U.S. are now No Kill communities and LA is nearing the landmark of become the biggest No Kill city in the country. More and more Angelenos are becoming believers.”
Peralta invites Palisadians to see their support in action by stopping by the adoption centers any day of the week from 12-8 p.m.
“Our work is on display in LA and you can visit the two Best Friends adoption centers and spay/neuter clinic in Los Angeles. We invite you to meet us and see our work for yourself,” he said.
Best Friends understands Palisadians have a lot of choices when it comes to charitable giving and knows the importance of making sure animal charity donations are being used effectively and responsibly. With that in mind, Best Friends makes sure that every dollar is going as far as it possibly can to save more lives and help animals in need.
The 91 percent of funds from individuals through donations and planned gifts make up the largest percentage of the gifts Best Friends receive. Those animal shelter donations are the lifeblood of the organization, paying for many of its programs around the country. Nearly 79 cents of ever dollar goes directly back to programing.
“It is an event formed to help grass roots rescues fundraise to have the ability to perform the great work they do for homeless animals across the nation,” Peralta said. “Strut Your Mutt is so popular because we are working together to raise money for rescues who, in turn, are rescuing pets from shelters, all with the common goal to ‘Save Them All.’”
Registration and check-in will open at 3:30 p.m. at Will Rogers State Park, 1501 Will Rogers. The Fun Run/Walk will begin at 5 p.m. followed by the Strut Your Mutt festival, live music and movie in the park (8:30 p.m.). Visit strutyourmutt.org
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