The successes in San Diego inspired a Shreveport, La., animal lover to start a program called The Protection Connection to buy vests for local K-9s. Across the country, the bulletproof-vest bug is biting other animal lovers. In some ways, the vests help their handlers more than the dogs themselves, said Sacramento police Sgt. One of the reasons we have dogs is that they don't have the fear that humans do. Nobody wants to send their dog to certain death, and if you vest your dog, you're giving him that extra protection like you have.
Some departments use alarms that turn on the air conditioning if a car overheats.
Occasionally, though, the heat alarms work too well. Officers sometimes forget to turn them off, leaving the alarms to sound on weekends when no dog or human is in the car. Some citizens groups are paying for heat alarms in addition to vests. The volunteers also bought automatic air conditioning devices for police cars. It came down to letting people know that this need existed.