Police dogs die from heatstroke more than any other nonmedical reason, and most of them spend their last moments sweltering in squad cars.
At least 46 police dogs across the United States died from overwhelming heat while locked inside their handlers' cars during the past five years alone, according to a Press-Gazette Media review of 619 deaths since 2011.
At least 18 more dogs died of heatstroke after being pushed too hard during training exercises, while tied outside in direct sunlight or other reasons.
Both veteran handlers and animal advocates say such deaths are preventable and illustrate acts of negligence or over-reliance on technology to protect the dogs.
Wix, a Brown County Sheriff's Office bomb-detection dog became the first in Wisconsin to die from heatstroke in recent history. The 3-year-old Belgian Malinois died in his handler's squad car after the air conditioning and heat alarm failed Aug. 12. The car was parked under direct sunlight in a field at the PGA Championship golf tournament near Sheboygan. An internal investigation determined the handler did nothing wrong.
Police officers need to be held to a higher standard to protect their canine partners, said Russ Hess, a retired handler and executive director of the United States Police K9 Association.
"We're only humans, and humans make mistakes … but the responsibility stays with the officer to check on his dog just as if it were his child," Hess said.
In one horrifying incident from 2013, 10 U.S. Customs and Border Protection dogs died in a transport vehicle while en route to a canine training center at Fort Bliss, Texas. The air conditioning failed during the trip, and the dogs arrived dead, the El Paso Times reported.
"Those dogs were essentially in an oven. You don't have to be an animal lover to be sick about this," a Fort Bliss spokesman told reporters at the time.
No one knows exactly how many police dogs die from heatstroke every year. Law enforcement agencies aren't required to report it.
Two memorial websites that track police dog deaths — the Connecticut Police Work Dog Association and Officer Down Memorial Page — identified 64 deaths from heatstroke on U.S. soil since 2011.
"To our way of looking at things, an officer who allows a dog to die of heat exhaustion on duty is as neglectful as leaving a service revolver on a school playground," said Scott Heiser, director of the criminal justice program for the California-based Animal Legal Defense Fund.
"These types of cases just simply shouldn't be happening," Heiser said.
