Donations buy K-9 cops bulletproof vests

In a victory for man’s best friend, 14 Bay Area police dogs are now the proud owners of custom bulletproof vests.

Redwood City Police Department Officer Dan Skilatchi’s K-9 Cliff was one of the lucky pups to get a new bulletproof vest. Skilatchi told KCBS:

“Anytime I’ve searched for high-risk suspects or anything like that, the dog goes [into] his vest. He loves it, he loves wearing it.”

The custom-made vests protect the police dogs from a bullet or knife attack and even have special clips officers can use to hoist the dogs up.

Steve LeCouve of the Police and Working K-9 Foundation, told KCBS:

“They’re very strong. These vests are designed for the canines to be hoisted in and out of aircraft, up and down buildings, and into attics.”

Thanks to fundraising efforts over the past year from the Police and Working K-9 Foundation, they were able to raise $121,000 for heat alarms and bulletproof vests. The heat alarms are used to monitor the temperature inside of patrol cars with K-9 units.

While patrol cars are always running the air conditioner to keep their K-9s cool, in case the air conditioning in the police car shuts off, the alarm causes the windows to automatically roll down, a fan turns on, an alarm sounds and the system sends an alert to a pager-like device officers keep on their belt.

San Francisco Police Officer Roly Canales told the Chronicle:

“That tells the whole world you’d better get to your dog in a few minutes, or you’re going to have a hot dog.”