The American Kennel Club (AKC®), the world’s largest purebred dog registry and leading advocate for dogs, is pleased to announce that it presented the 2018 AKC Legislator of the Year Award to Congressman Mike Rogers of Alabama on August 28th, 2018 at the AKC U.S. Dog Detection Conference in Durham, NC.
“Congressman Rogers is a leading voice in Congress on the Committee on Homeland Security and consistently addresses the need for more domestically-bred service dogs,” says Sheila Goffe, VP of Government Relations for The AKC. “An example of this leadership is his diligence in bringing together the knowledge and resources of top dog breeders, trainers, researchers and handlers to establish working dog standards for excellence to help ensure a future source of high quality explosives detection dogs that can protect our national and public security. We greatly appreciate the work he is doing on this issue.”
In addition to those accomplishments, Congressman Rogers placed language in the 2017 Defense Authorization Act (HR 2810) to require reports on detection dog purchases and to increase accountability and transparency regarding the purchase of foreign-bred dogs by the US Government for detection dog programs.
Last December, Congressman Rogers introduced HB 4577, the ‘Domestic Explosives Detection Canine Capacity Building Act’. The bill calls for the development of a working group to develop a decentralized domestic canine breeding network to produce high quality explosives detection canines and modernize canine training standards. It has passed the House and is now in the Senate.