Eight Discoveries Named for the 2026 Canine Health Discovery of the Year

What happened

• The AKC Canine Health Foundation announced eight semifinalists for its 2026 Canine Health Discovery of the Year award on October 21, 2026 ¹.
• Three finalists are due to be announced in November, and the winner will be revealed at the foundation’s gala on December 10, 2026 ¹.

The eight discoveries

1. Dog dementia guidelines: standard guidelines for diagnosing and monitoring canine cognitive dysfunction (Dr. Natasha Olby, NC State, and an international working group) ¹. See our report.
2. Tick-borne disease: genomics of Anaplasma platys (Dr. Sree Rajeev, University of Tennessee) ¹.
3. Chagas disease: the first randomized field trial of a therapeutic vaccine for Chagas disease in dogs (Dr. Eric Dumonteil and Dr. Claudia Herrera, Tulane University) ¹.
4. Leptospirosis: research supporting annual vaccination for all dogs (Dr. Jane Sykes, UC Davis, and colleagues) ¹. See our report.
5. Genetic variants across 43 breeds: an international team including researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Aarhus University, the NIH and the University of Helsinki ¹.
6. Glycogen storage disease in Basset Hounds: linked to the RBCK1 gene (Dr. Kari Ekenstedt, University of Missouri, with colleagues at Purdue and Cornell) ¹.
7. Stomach cancer risk in Belgian breeds (Dr. Jacquelyn Evans, Cornell) ¹.
8. Fecal microbiota transplants for chronic gut disease (Dr. Carla Vecchiato, University of Bologna, and Dr. Jan Suchodolski, Texas A&M) ¹.

Why it matters

Funded research like this is what eventually changes veterinary practice and breeding decisions. We’ll report the finalists and the winner when they are announced.