Calling All Canine Heroes! Nominations For The 2025 AKC Humane Fund Awards For Canine Excellence Open Now With Expanded Categories!

The AKC Humane Fund is pleased to announce that nominations for its 2025 AKC Humane Fund Awards for Canine Excellence (ACE) are open NOW with new expanded and updated categories! Nominations are open until July 1st, 2025.

This year, the ACE Awards have revamped their categories to allow a variety of different heroes to be considered for their hard work. There will now be a sixth category honoring teams, which include entire units for Search & Rescue, Therapy Dogs, and Uniformed Service K-9.

Additionally, the general Search & Rescue category will split into two sub-categories, allowing separate honors for Disaster Response, for tragedies such as natural disasters, building collapses, etc. and Human Detection, which include locating remains, missing persons, and/or gravesite detection.

“Every year, dogs continue to show us the positive impact they make on our daily lives,” said Doug Ljungren President & CEO of the AKC Humane Fund. “Expanding our search allows the AKC Humane Fund to bring even more awareness to the good deeds dogs do in our communities.”

Each year, the AKC Humane Fund, a not-for-profit organization, honors dedicated, hardworking dogs for making significant contributions to an individual or entire community. Since its creation in 2000, 125 ACE awards have been presented. Last year’s ACE recipients included a Labrador Retriever who is trained to sniff out hidden electronic devices to stop human trafficking and a rescue dog who went on to become an AKC Agility superstar.

The AKC Humane Fund Awards for Canine Excellence are proudly sponsored by EukanubaTM. Winners will be announced in late 2025 and will be highlighted in a made- for-tv special and will receive $1,000 to be awarded to a pet-related charity of their choice.

In 2025, dogs can be nominated in the following categories:

Uniformed Service K-9

Eligibility: Full-time working K-9s in the realms of city, county, state, or federal law enforcement; the military; firefighting; customs and border patrol; emergency services.

Exemplary Companion

Eligibility: Dogs without formal training or certification that have nonetheless distinguished themselves in some way and have made a meaningful contribution to their owners or communities.

Search and Rescue

Eligibility: Dogs certified to assist in one of two sub-categories:

• -  Disaster Response (natural disasters, building collapses, etc.)
• -  Human Detection (remains, missing persons, and/or gravesite detection)

  Therapy Dog

  Eligibility: Certified therapy dogs working in hospitals, schools, disaster sites, war zones, and wherever else the affection of a good dog can provide comfort.

  Service Dog

  Eligibility: Service dogs who enrich the lives of physically or mentally disabled owners, including, but not limited to, guide dogs for the blind, seizure-alert dogs, hearing dogs, balance dogs.

  Teams

  Eligibility: teams certified to assist in search and rescue (human detection and disaster response), therapy and/or K9 police work.

  **(Note: Nominees doing therapy work without certification are considered in the Exemplary Companion category.)