It's a Bird!  It's a plane!  No, It's a Hero Dog at Zoom Room!

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Zoom Room®, the country's fastest-growing pet franchise, has joined forces with America's leading humanitarian organization to celebrate dogs and the people who love them as the new National Community Partner for the 2012 American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards™. In just three short weeks of voting, Americans have cast more than 400,000 ballots for their favorite Hero Dog at www.herodogawards.org. 

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101108/DC97343LOGO)

The Hero Dog Awards were created by the American Humane Association to recognize and honor the powerful relationship between dogs and people. Presented by the Lois Pope LIFE Foundation and broadcast nationwide on Hallmark Channel, the American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards are produced by Emmy® award winning MRB Productions. The annual national competition searches out and recognizes America's 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 providing therapeutic support to a child suffering from cancer in a hospital. 

As National Community partner, Zoom Room will hold events at its Denver and Hollywood locations leading up to the 2012 Hero Dog Awards Gala. Each Zoom Room location provides a fun, social atmosphere where dogs and their owners engage in classes ranging from obedience training to therapy dog training and more.   

"At the Zoom Room we celebrate dogs and people every day.  We could not be more excited to lend our support to the American Humane Association in the 2012 Hero Dog Awards by opening our doors in Hollywood and Denver for people to see Hero Dogs in action and by using our significant dog-loving social media network to encourage voting and support," says Mark Van Wye, Chief Operating Officer for Zoom Room, which has 10 locations across the United States and seventeen more on the way.  "Our goal at the Zoom Room is to fill the world with happy, tired dogs and we think every one of them is a hero."

"Dogs enrich and protect our lives every single day and we use the Hero Dog Awards to tell the compelling story of the human-animal bond," said Dr. Robin Ganzert, President and CEO of the 135-year-old American Humane Association. "We share a common goal with Zoom Room in that we also want to fill the world with happy dogs and people who love them."

Voting is now open for the Hero Dog Awards in eight categories: 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 who do extraordinary things).  Finalists in each of the eight categories will be selected by the public from the pool of contestants, and flown to Hollywood with their human friends to the American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards™ gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California on October 6, 2012.  There they will walk the red carpet, attend the show which will be broadcast on the Hallmark Channel, and will be recognized in a video tribute at the black-tie gala where the winning American Hero Dog will be announced.  Visit www.herodogawards.org  to vote today!

About American Humane Association

Since 1877 American Humane Association has been at the forefront of virtually every major advance in protecting children, pets and farm animals from cruelty, abuse and neglect. Today we're also leading the way in understanding the human-animal bond and its role in therapy, medicine and society. American Humane Association reaches millions of people every day through groundbreaking research, education, training and services that span a wide network of organizations, agencies and businesses. You can help make a difference, too. Visit American Humane Association at www.americanhumane.org  today.

About Lois Pope and the Lois Pope LIFE Foundation

Lois Pope is one of America's leading philanthropists and humanitarians.  Through her various charitable mechanisms, including the Lois Pope LIFE Foundation, Inc., she is devoted to saving lives, helping people help themselves, improving the quality of life for families in need and encouraging young Americans to become leaders by helping others.  Her foundations also provide awards for medical research, college scholarships, humanitarian relief, the performing arts, and animal welfare.  Among the many organizations that benefit from her leadership are the American Humane Association; the Disabled Veterans' LIFE Memorial Foundation, which she founded to spearhead the development of the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial, the nation's first and only permanent public tribute to the three million living disabled American veterans and the thousands who have died; the University of Miami, where her major contribution endowed the Lois Pope LIFE Center, the top catastrophic neurological research facility in the world and home to the renowned Miami Project to Cure Paralysis;  Leaders in Furthering Education, which has provided a summer camp experience for more than 15,000 disadvantaged and special needs children, as well as college scholarship support to dozens of disadvantaged high school students who aspire to careers as physicians/researchers; Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's Red Cross, for new ambulances; and the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League for a new mobile pet adoption unit.

About Zoom Room®

The Zoom Room is a dog training center and canine social club specializing in dog agility. Founded in 2007 by expert dog trainer Jaime Van Wye, the Zoom Room offers dozens of classes teaching dog owners how to train their dogs, in addition to hosting events such as dog birthday parties, breed meet-up groups and fundraising events. For more information, visit www.ZoomRoomOnline.com.

About Hallmark Channel

Hallmark Channel, owned and operated by Crown Media Holdings, Inc., is a 24-hour basic cable network that provides a diverse slate of high-quality entertainment programming available in high definition (HD) and standard definition (SD) to a national audience of 87 million subscribers. The top tier program service is distributed through approximately 5,492 cable systems and communities as well as direct-to-home satellite services across the country. Hallmark Channel is the nation's leading network in quality family programming with an ambitious slate of original TV movies, lifestyle and general entertainment content, and is the home of "The Martha Stewart Show", which anchors the channel's daytime original programming block. Hallmark Channel's sibling network is Hallmark Movie Channel, also available in HD and SD, which focuses on the family-friendly movies with a mix of classic theatrical films, presentations from the acclaimed Hallmark Hall of Fame library, original Hallmark Channel movies and special events. For more information, please visit www.HallmarkChannelPress.com .

About MRB Productions

MRB's feature department is currently in production on the psychological thriller Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes, starring Jessica Biel and Kaya Scodelario.  MRB's other film, Grassroots, starring Jason Biggs and Lauren Ambrose, is slated to premiere later this year. In TV, MRB produced the inaugural Hero Dog Awards in addition to a decade of experience producing the pre-taped segments and VIP program for ESPN's ESPY Awards. Additional TV projects include two seasons of the mockumentary comedy show Free Radio on VH1 and Comedy Central. MRB's commercial repertoire includes collaborations with Leo Burnett, Periera & O'Dell, Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis, and 72 & Sunny for clients such as Mattel, Samsung, Kellogg's, Sprint, NHL, Corona, Smirnoff, Wal-Mart, Hyundai and University of Phoenix.

SOURCE American Humane Association