TIER I
Brain First Manners Award™
Foundation manners, calm greeting, leash partnership, handling cooperation, basic cues, recall foundations, and safe everyday behavior.
Crown & Collar Institute™ offers many forms of recognition, including breeder recognition, pairing recognition, companion recognition, community recognition, youth recognition, memorial recognition, and legacy recognition.
Brain First Tested Awards™ are different.
These are the only Crown & Collar Institute™ awards built around observed skills, evaluator review, documented team readiness, approved learning records, service-hour logs, or working-team documentation.
This pathway is designed for dogs and handler teams developing real-world manners, emotional regulation, public confidence, therapy-readiness foundations, service-dog candidate skills, community education, and meaningful working-team service.
The Brain First Tested Awards™ pathway is built on the belief that behavior grows from brain development, trust, confidence, emotional regulation, humane handling, and handler partnership.
01 · THE LADDER
The Brain First Tested Award Ladder™
TIER II
Brain First Stability Award™
Emotional regulation, recovery after distractions, calm waiting, impulse control, neutral dog passing, handler connection, and safe behavior under mild real-world pressure.
TIER III
Brain First Confidence Award™
Confidence with new environments, surfaces, sounds, objects, movement, people, animals, and everyday change while maintaining trust and handler partnership.
TIER IV
Brain First Public Manners Award™
Advanced public-style manners, including doorways, sidewalks, waiting areas, crowds, carts, dropped-item refusal, calm settling, and controlled exits.
TIER V
Brain First Therapy Readiness Award™
Preparation for therapy-style visiting work, including gentle interaction, consent-based greetings, calm visiting behavior, handler awareness, facility manners, and recovery after stimulation.
This award does not replace registration, certification, or approval by an outside therapy-dog organization when such approval is required by a facility, school, hospital, care center, agency, or therapy-dog program.
TIER VI
Brain First Service Dog Candidate Award™
Recognition for a dog-and-handler team developing toward service-dog work. This may include public manners, task-training foundations, handler education, training logs, control, safety, neutrality, house-training, and recovery skills.
This recognition is not legal service-dog certification and does not grant public-access rights by itself.
TIER VII
Brain First Working Team Recognition™
Recognition for documented dog-and-handler teams contributing through therapy visits, service-dog task work, school or facility support, community education, youth education, public service, ambassador work, or other approved working-team roles.
02 · STANDARDS
Why These Awards Are Tested
Unlike nomination-based, documentation-based, breeder, pairing, memorial, legacy, or community recognition awards, Brain First Tested Awards™ require a higher level of observed review.
Depending on the award level, review may include:
- Live skills testing
- Approved video review
- Evaluator notes
- Handler education review
- Training records
- Service or public-service hour logs
- Therapy visit documentation
- Working-team documentation
- Specialist review
- Review panel approval
These awards are not based on breed popularity, appearance, registry status, social media claims, online paperwork alone, or unverified service-dog claims.
03 · EVALUATORS
Qualified Testers & Evaluators
Because Brain First Tested Awards™ are the official tested-award pathway within Crown & Collar Institute™, testing must be protected by clear standards.
Official Crown & Collar Institute™ testers and evaluators must be adults age 18 or older.
Crown & Collar may recognize:
- Approved Brain First Tester™
- Advanced Brain First Evaluator™
- Specialist Reviewer
- Review Panel Member
- Adult Tester-in-Training™
Adult testers and evaluators may be asked to show meaningful experience working with dogs and handlers, experience with multiple breeds or dog types, commitment to humane brain-first handling, ability to document observations fairly, and agreement not to make misleading service-dog, therapy-dog, legal-access, or certification claims.
04 · YOUTH
Youth Ambassador Apprentice Pathway™
Youth may begin learning the tested-award system through the Crown & Collar Youth Ambassador program.
Youth ages 15–17 may participate in supervised learning, public education, event support, observation, mock scoring, documentation practice, and community service activities.
Youth apprentice roles may include:
- Youth Observer™
- Youth Testing Assistant™
- Youth Evaluator Apprentice™
Youth apprentices may not independently test, pass, fail, approve, deny, certify, or represent a dog as a service dog, therapy dog, or legally recognized working dog.
05 · PREPARATION
Safety Training, Written Testing & Service-Hour Requirements
Crown & Collar Institute™ may require youth apprentices, adult apprentices, testers-in-training, and evaluator candidates to complete both outside safety training and Crown & Collar program testing.
Outside Safety Training
Participants may be asked to provide proof of completion for safety training such as:
- CPR / First Aid / AED
- Babysitting, child-care, or child-safety training for youth working around children or family events
- Cat & Dog / Pet First Aid
- Wilderness or Remote First Aid for outdoor, ranch, camp, travel, field, or public-service settings
Crown & Collar Institute™ may accept American Red Cross courses or approved equivalent training from qualified organizations, schools, emergency-service programs, veterinary programs, scouting programs, community programs, or other approved providers.
Crown & Collar Institute™ does not claim to replace outside CPR, First Aid, AED, child-safety, pet first aid, or wilderness first aid certification unless a formal provider agreement or qualified instructor arrangement is in place.
Crown & Collar Written Readiness Testing
In addition to outside safety training, Crown & Collar Institute™ may require participants to complete a written readiness test or course before advancing into higher responsibility roles.
The Crown & Collar written test may cover:
- Dog body language
- Bite prevention
- Humane handling
- Public event safety
- Therapy-dog pathway clarity
- Service-dog pathway clarity
- Youth apprentice boundaries
- Emergency reporting
- Handler privacy and respect
- Conflict-of-interest rules
- Documentation standards
- Service-hour logs
- Crown & Collar ethics and humane training expectations
Passing a Crown & Collar written test does not make a youth or adult an independent tester by itself. Official testing authority requires approval by Crown & Collar Institute™ and, when applicable, supervised experience, documentation review, and age requirements.
06 · HOURS
Community Service & Learning Hours
Crown & Collar Institute™ may document community service, public service, volunteer, leadership, and learning hours for youth and adult participants.
Hours may include:
- Brain First Tested Awards™ event support
- Youth Ambassador education
- Public dog-safety education
- Therapy-dog pathway education
- Service-dog pathway education
- Community outreach
- Event setup and cleanup
- Supervised evaluator training
- Approved observation or documentation work
- Safety-course hours
- Crown & Collar written-course hours
For now, these hours are documented as Crown & Collar Institute™ service and learning hours. Participants may submit their records to schools, clubs, homeschool programs, civic groups, youth organizations, or other programs when those organizations choose to accept them.
Crown & Collar Institute™ does not guarantee outside academic credit unless a separate agreement is created with the school or educational partner.
07 · CLARITY
Legal & Program Clarity
Crown & Collar Institute™ tested awards recognize training milestones, observed skills, handler partnership, safety preparation, and documented readiness.
They do not replace veterinary care, legal advice, disability documentation, AKC titles, registry titles, therapy-dog organization certification, Red Cross certification, school credit approval, or applicable law.
A Brain First Service Dog Candidate Award™ is not legal service-dog certification. It does not prove disability, does not grant public-access rights, and does not require businesses, schools, housing providers, transportation providers, or public places to accept a dog.
Service-dog access and handler responsibilities are governed by applicable law.
08 · ECOSYSTEM
Connected Learning Pathways
Brain First Tested Awards™ may connect with:
- Ruff Ruff Ranch™ training and development programs
- Brain First Dog Training™ preparation resources
- Lewis & Clark Therapy/Service Dogs™ service and therapy dog education
- DogsNU™ public education resources
- Crown & Collar Institute™ recognition profiles and award records
- Crown & Collar Youth Ambassador™ leadership and service-hour pathways
GET INVOLVED
Interested in Brain First Tested Awards™?
Families, trainers, handlers, therapy-dog prospects, service-dog candidates, youth ambassadors, adult volunteers, and community teams may begin by learning the award levels and preparing for the appropriate review.
Form Pending — inquiries may be sent to DogsNU@proton.me.
Brain First™, Brain First Tested Awards™, Brain First Tested Award Ladder™, Brain First Manners Award™, Brain First Stability Award™, Brain First Confidence Award™, Brain First Public Manners Award™, Brain First Therapy Readiness Award™, Brain First Service Dog Candidate Award™, Brain First Working Team Recognition™, Crown & Collar Institute™, Crown & Collar Youth Ambassador™, Ruff Ruff Ranch™, Brain First Dog Training™, DogsNU™, and Lewis & Clark Therapy/Service Dogs™ are program names used within the L. Athena "Charity" Knowles educational and recognition ecosystem.