• March 14, 2012

State Farm is joining forces with the American Humane Association to celebrate the relationship between dogs and people with the sponsorship of the "Law Enforcement & Arson Dog" category for the 2012 American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards.

Dog lovers across the country are nominating their favorite canines in eight categories for the Hero Dog Awards at www.herodogawards.org. Nominations close on March 26 and voting by the general public will begin on April 1. 

The Hero Dog Awards were created by the American Humane Association. The annual national competition searches out and recognizes hero dogs -- often ordinary dogs who do extraordinary things, whether it's saving lives on the battlefield, lending sight or hearing to a human companion, or just welcoming a person home at the end of a hard day. 

State Farm’s arson dog Sadie won in the American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards' Law Enforcement and Arson dog category last year. Since 1993 State Farm has provided funding for the acquisition and training of special dogs who detect accelerants and the cause of fires. State Farm has placed more than 250 arson dogs in the U.S. and Canada over the last two decades.

Dogs may be nominated in eight categories for the awards: Law Enforcement & Arson Dogs; Service Dogs; Therapy Dogs; Military Dogs; Guide Dogs; Search and Rescue Dogs; Hearing Dogs; and Emerging Hero Dogs (the category for ordinary dogs). 

Finalists in each of the eight categories will be selected by the public from the pool of contestants, and flown to Hollywood with two of their human friends to the American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California on Oct. 6.--Tanya Irwin