This Nonprofit Is Hosting a 31 Mile Dog Walk Challenge for January — Here’s How You Can Join

Pet parents and dog walkers: there's a new viral challenge that may be up your alley. By joining the 31 Mile dog walk challenge, you will be participating in a fundraiser to help keep dogs out of shelters and high-risk situations.

Dogs across the U.S. go straight to shelters and are even euthanized every year. The 31 Mile Dog Walk Challenge not only allows you to exercise and spend more time with your dog, but it also teaches about misconceptions surrounding certain dog breeds, and how these misconceptions can have a large impact on their quality of life.

The fitness challenge is hosted by Kennel to Couch (K2C), a nonprofit that teams with shelters, trainers, and local community partners to promote pit bull rescue, per K2C.

It sounds like a lot of walking, but the 31 miles don’t need to happen all at once. K2C says to approach the challenge as one mile a day, a healthy amount of exercise for you and your canine.

You may already be walking your dog one, two, or even three miles a day — so why not sign up to put those miles toward a good cause?

You can register for the challenge using this link. From there, you must create a Facebook Fundraiser to track your miles and collect donations. All funds collected will go straight to K2C’s mission of keeping dogs out of shelters.

Others participating in the challenge will be able to see updates to the Facebook page and motivating content from other dog walkers looking to complete the challenge.

Although we are already partly through the month of January, you can still register and walk your dog as many miles as you can.

According to the registration page, after your first fundraiser donation, you will receive a bracelet and bandana, and after $200, you will receive an exclusive medal!

Pit bulls are often misrepresented as overly aggressive in the media, and K2C is working to change that.

The K2C website lists several Pit Bull facts to strike down misconceptions. Contrary to popular belief, Pit Bulls have one of the best temperaments among popular dog breeds, only falling behind Labrador Retrievers in the temperament test passing rate.

Statistics reflect false assumptions against pit bulls as well, all per the K2C website. 80 percent of pit bulls in Prince George’s County, Md. are killed yearly because of a breed-specific ban. Of the 78 million dogs owned in the U.S., only 4 million are pit bulls. 60 percent of dogs euthanized each year in the U.S. are pit bulls.

K2C‘s mission is to decrease these jarring misconceptions by partnering with shelters to decrease the euthanization and mistreatment of pit bulls while also working with families and organizations to provide training and adoption assistance.

Therefore, by doing something as simple as walking your dog you are participating in a larger mission to change shelter practices across the country.