The Walk for Animals is the Animal Humane Society’s biggest fundraiser of the year — a one-mile walk around the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, held on a Saturday each spring, with a few thousand people and a great many dogs.
It’s worth saying up front what this is and isn’t. It’s AHS’s event, and the money raised goes to AHS. It isn’t a fundraiser for the rescues listed on this site, and we’re not affiliated with it. We cover it because it’s the largest animal-welfare event in the Twin Cities calendar and people ask about it.
When it happens
Spring, on a Saturday, at the Fairgrounds. We don’t print the date here on purpose. The next year’s walk isn’t always announced right after the last one, and a stale date on a page like this is the kind of mistake that sends someone driving to Falcon Heights on the wrong morning.
Animal Humane Society’s event page is the authority. That’s where the date, registration and route map go up.
What the day looks like
The shape of it has been consistent for years:
- Grounds open at 9 AM at the International Bazaar on the Fairgrounds, with vendors, food trucks and activities.
- Walking starts at 10 AM. The route is about a mile, and you can turn around whenever you like or loop it again.
- A pet costume contest late morning, at the mainstage.
- Everything wraps up by 1 PM.
There’s free parking off Como Avenue near Fairgrounds gate 7, and a vendor village of sixty-odd pet businesses, rescues and local retailers. Bring your own water bottle and some cash — not every food vendor takes cards.
What the money does
AHS puts fundraising from the Walk toward housing and medical care for animals awaiting adoption, its cruelty and neglect work, keeping its veterinary services low-cost, and community resources like free pet food and the Pet Helpline that help people keep the pets they already have.
If you’d rather support a smaller rescue
The Walk is a big, well-run event with a big organization behind it. Plenty of the groups in our directory are a handful of people and a spare room, and they don’t have a fundraiser at the Fairgrounds.
If that’s where you’d rather put your time or money, the useful thing to know is that most of them need the same four things year-round:
- Foster homes. For a foster-based rescue this is the whole constraint — how many animals they can say yes to this week is exactly how many spare rooms are free. What fostering involves.
- Adopters. Browse rescues near you, or start with dog rescues or cat rescues.
- Volunteers. Transport, laundry, events, data entry. Deeply unglamorous and always short.
- Money and supplies. What shelters actually need most is usually more specific than you’d guess.
Every listing in our directory carries the organization’s own contact details, so you can ask them directly what they’re short of. And if you’re looking for other events, our events page explains where local adoption events and fundraisers actually get announced — which, honestly, is mostly Facebook.
