If you’d do anything for your best friend, we’re right there with you. KSL Classifieds is sponsoring Best Friends Strut Your Mutt event in partnership with Best Friends Animal Sanctuary to raise money for dogs and cats in need of a loving home.

Join us in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Oct. 21, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m to walk your pets around Liberty Park, raise some money and participate in dog friendly activities, contests and raffles.

Events like Strut Your Mutt aim to raise funds not only for homeless pets, but to directly help partnered organizations and friends in the No-Kill Utah Network. Best Friends leads this network in bringing shelters and rescue groups together in a joint effort to end shelter killings statewide by 2025. By helping educate the community on the progress in our state and cities, we can more quickly reach the goal of no-kill, together.

When you go to Best Friends’ website, you have a couple of options to contribute. Register to attend Strut Your Mutt and start your own fundraiser with an organization of your choice. If you can’t attend, you can still go to their website to donate to any of their partnered shelters or rescue organizations.

Best Friends Animal Society has aimed to do just that for the last 35 years. When it first started in southern Utah, it was just a small group of people with the belief that our animal companions were just as important as us. As pioneers of the no-kill movement, they started a small sanctuary with the goal to end needless shelter killings and prioritize the safety and security of unwanted animals.

And it turns out that people everywhere agree with them! They’re now the largest no-kill sanctuary in the country and the organization, which has lifesaving centers around the country, has helped create a nationwide network of shelters — all striving for giving kindness and compassion to our most vulnerable furry friends.

Since opening, Best Friends has helped reduce annual shelter kills from 17 million down to 378,000 nationally. There’s still a way to go, but we’re joining them on their mission to become a no-kill country by 2025. And you can, too!

If you want to support your furry friends, this is the event to do it. Strut Your Mutt has been an annual fundraiser hosted all over the country, and this year it will be in Salt Lake City, taking it back to where it originally started in 1995. In those 28 years, the event has raised $13.7 million dollars for homeless pets nationwide.

KSL Classifieds loves this fundraising walk because we, like you, adore our pets and love to see them congregated in one place. It’s so cute! We also think pets without a loving home (yet) deserve an equal chance at love and care. By sponsoring local shelter events like Strut Your Mutt, we hope to create a community that puts our sweetest pals first.

Last year, KSL Classifieds made some important improvements to our Pets category in an effort to cut back on unethical breeding practices and encourage pet adoption. We also added a $15 listing fee to our Dogs subcategory, and a portion of the fee goes toward homeless pets, animal rights groups and shelters like Best Friends.

Head to Liberty Park in downtown Salt Lake City on October 21. The event goes from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. and the walk starts at 11:00 a.m. Make a one-time donation of $35 to support homeless animals when you register for Strut Your Mutt.

The event will use every penny raised to directly help homeless pets through Best Friends or other local animal organizations. Even if you can’t attend the walk, create your own fundraiser and donate to save a pet’s life! You can also volunteer for the event to help with registration, logistics along the walking route or event setup and cleanup.

So put on Fido's cutest little booties and get to walkin’. And remember, it pays to be kind. Woof!