Two and four-legged Angelenos turned out in droves to strut their stuff for Best Friends Animal Society’s Strut Your Mutt Saturday at Will Rogers State Historic Park in Pacific Palisades.
A multi-million dollar fundraiser benefiting hundreds of humane organizations with similar events across the country, Strut Your Mutt had its largest Los Angles presence to date with more than 2,000 participants.
This year’s event was emceed by Jonathan London of Geekscape.net and attendees included beloved American hero dog Lassie, Heather McComb from “Ray Donovan” and “Party of Five,” as well as teen pop stars Mandy Rain and Kenton Duty, who premiered their video of the duet “Dare to Love” and members of the L.A. Kings Ice Crew.
“We have been conducting this event for 18 years and in that time it has raised millions for shelters and rescues from California to New York,” Best Friends’ Chief Executive Officer Gregory Castle said. “Strut Your Mutt is a celebratory way for everyone to come together and join us in our call to action: Save Them All.”
Funds raised through Strut Your Mutt are used locally for adoption programs, spay/ neuter services and other lifesaving programs, which dramatically impact the number of pets entering and leaving the shelters. Last year, nearly $1.7 million benefited approximately 230 animal welfare groups. This year’s goal is to raise a grand total of $2 million.
While donations can still be made at www.strutyourmutt. org/la2014, Strut Your Mutt has taken in more than $600,000, the highest amount Los Angeles ever raised in the event’s history.
“When we started Best Friends 30 years ago, more than 45,000 animals were being killed daily in American shelters,” continued Castle. “With a lot of hard work by a lot of organizations around the country, that number has dropped to 9,000. Strut Your Mutt helps raise money to continue the work to get that number to zero.” Best Friends Animal Society is the national animal welfare organization focused exclusively on ending the killing of more than 9,000 cats and dogs per day in America’s shelters.
Last fall, Best Friends launched their new call to action campaign, Save Them All to create awareness for this issue and of the need to adopt and spay/neuter all pets.
Best Friends is working collaboratively in Los Angeles with animal rescue groups, city shelters and passionate individuals who are all dedicated to the mission of making Los Angeles a no-kill city. As part of this mission, Best Friends hosts adoption and fundraising events such as Strut Your Mutt and NKLA Adoption Weekends, runs both the Best Friends Pet Adoption and Spay Neuter Center in Mission Hills and the NKLA Pet Adoption Center in West Los Angeles, and leads the NKLA initiative.
More information on Best Friends Animal’s Society is available at: http://www.bestfriends.org/.
For more information on NKLA, persons interested can visit: http://www.nkla.org/.