The five corgis who stood in for the royal kennel in Stephen Frears' award-winning film The Queen are up for the London Film Festival's newly created award for dog performance.

Queen Elizabeth admires Canadian corgis outside the Alberta legislature in Edmonton in 2005.
(Canadian Press)

The Fido Awards to be given out Oct. 28 in London are in their first year, but already they are hotly anticipated.

The Fidos have the potential to award the corgis — Anna, Poppy, Megan, Alice and Oliver — a modicum of the recognition that goes to actresses such as Helen Mirren, who won an Oscar for her masterful performance as the monarch.

The corgis are owned by retired caterer Liz Smith, but they aren't film-trained.

In an interview in the Observer newspaper, Mirren recalled sharing the screen with them in many of the outdoor scenes in The Queen.

"I am good with dogs and know how to get them to do what I want," she said.

"I loved those corgis because they were funny. I can understand why the Queen has them. Forget winning an Oscar, I'd be more proud of an award for dog handling."

The dogs are contending for the award for best historical hound with the collie mix in Control and the dog in Laurent Tirard's comedy, Molière, about the early life of the French playwright.

In Control, Anton Corbijn's film about the life of Ian Curtis, lead singer of the 1980s band Joy Division, the dog appears at the critical point when Curtis is sinking into a world of drugs.

Canine contenders

More dogs are nominated for Comedy Canine, the best dog in a comedy; Blockbuster Bowser for performance in an action film; and Cupcake Cinema for a role in a short film.

Contending for Comedy Canine are pooches in Year of the Dog, whose heroine finds her life out of control after the death of her dog, Nancy Meyer's The Holiday and Robert Benton's Feast of Love.

The Blockbuster Bowser nominees are the unnamed stars of U.S. action films Shooter, Shoot 'em Up and The Savages.

The Fidos were created by British journalist Toby Rose, who annually awards the Palme Dog at the Cannes Film Festival in France.