Nicole Dyer and Amber

ELKHART — A four-legged member of the fire service is in the running for some top honors.

Before retiring, Amber worked as an arson dog for the Elkhart Fire Department. With your help, she could be headed to the finals in a National Hero Dog Contest.

For the last couple of years, Nicole Dyer has worked as a trainer for the State Farm Arson Dog Program.

It provides dogs for fire departments to sniff out the cause of a fire.

Dyer previously worked for the Elkhart Fire Department with Amber, her partner. Amber is 18-years-old, that’s 126 in dog years!

“Amber was really helpful with making my job as an investigator a lot easier, as far as finding evidence for why the fire started,” said Dyer.

Amber and Dyer still remain a team, helping with training other dogs as arson dogs under a non-profit group, Paws for a Cause.

Dyer recently nominated Amber for the American Hero Dog Contest. So far she is in the semifinal round.

“American Humane Society does a national contest every year for their National Hero Dog. There’s eight different categories and we nominated Amber for the arson category,” said Dyer. “She is probably one of our oldest living retired arson dogs.”

Now, you can help Amber make it to the finals. The winner will be based on the number of votes cast online for the event, simply stated the more votes she receives, the better chances she could end up as top dog.

The finals will be held in Beverly Hills.

“The semifinal round will end on June 22, so it’s between Amber and two other dogs, Judge and Jab,” said Dyer.

If they get the most votes, they’ll win $2,500, which will go to Paws for a Cause.

“If we win the arson category, then we get to go to Beverly Hills and we will represent the arson category and the hero dog for the category,” Dyer explained.

To vote visit this website: http://herodogawards.org/dog/amber/

Source: WSBT