As Best Friends' home state, Utah is in many ways the heart of our lifesaving efforts and has served as the proving ground for many of our no-kill initiatives and programs. Best Friends began outreach work in Salt Lake City in the early 1990s. In 1994, Best Friends organized the first Utah's Week for the Animals, a statewide promotion of pet adoption, spay/neuter, and animal advocacy that grew to include the first Strut Your Mutt, a grassroots fundraiser for animal rescue groups. It’s where we opened the first pet adoption center in a shopping mall and more adoption campaigns than we can count.