A successful strut
Nearly 2,400 people and 1,600 dogs strutted it out of the park at the 2014 Salt Lake City Strut Your Mutt. A gorgeous late summer day at Liberty Park set the stage for always-popular spray-on tattoos, a photo booth, dog-centric demonstrations, a beer garden, great food and fun for four-legged friends. While the day was most certainly fun and games, the event was the culmination of serious fundraising that will go directly to saving thousands of lives.
For 18 years Strut Your Mutt, organized and hosted by Best Friends, has provided shelters and rescue groups with a ready-made fundraiser to help them save more pets. Some groups raise their entire year’s operating budgets at Strut Your Mutt. This year, the Salt Lake City event was one of 12 across the country, including an additional Utah event in Kanab.
While the event day was a smashing success, the real cause for cheer is the successful fundraising, which will pay for spay/neuter, medical care, trap/neuter/return and many other costs associated with saving pets’ lives and getting them into great homes. Each group’s hard work will help us collectively, make Utah to a no-kill state. Strut Your Mutt is just one of the many pieces of the Best Friends-led initiative, No-Kill Utah (NKUT) where our goal is to get Utah to no-kill by 2019.
Participants raised nearly $173,000 (and counting, fundraising is open through Oct. 11). Of the total amount raised, nearly $106,000 went to the 17 Network partners at the event.
While each and every person who raised funds for pets is worthy of an award, there must be a winner in each of several categories. Below are the winners from this year’s event:
CAWS! Community Animal Welfare Society - Golden Bone Award (top Network partner team)
Morgue Mutts – Golden Mutt Award (top friends & family team)
Delta Force – Golden Biscuit Award (top company team)
Alternative Fueled Mutts – Golden Pack Award (most team members, excluding Network partner teams)
Linzi Kay and Jake Kenczka - Golden Collar Award (top individual fundraiser)
Get involved
While the 2014 Strut Your Mutt event is over, online donations will be accepted here through October 11, 2014.
Check out photos from the event here.