Is dog body armour worthwhile? I queried Ed in this and he felt it is too heavy and slows a dog down too much. Has anyone any other slants on this topic?

Body armor is not only too heavy - it's too HOT (which is the most important issue) and it does slow a dog down.

In my opinion there are very few places in police work for body armor on K9's. I will have Kevin Sheldahl comment on this too.

My feeling is it is of little value. I have a vest (that I did not ask for) that was purchased buy a local dog shelter after they saw that several police dogs had been shot in the state.
The vest is big and it is hot. In most cases you will not have the vest on the dog when he is shot. An example would be tracking where you encouter an armed suspect at the end of the track. You will not have the vest on the dog when tracking.

Many dogs (like it or not) get killed in cases where they should never have been used to begin with. We have all read about cases where a dog has been sent into a building after a armed suspect. The dog gets shot and I can only think of whats said next--"now what?"
My thinking is if you have a case and think "maybe I should put a vest on my dog" it might not be a dog call---its a SWAT call.

The vest are fairly new and I have not heard of any dog having been saved by one.

Just my 2 cents

When it comes to vests for dogs I think you have to look at what the dog is good at:
First they are fast, a vest slows them down.
Second they are agile, a vest decreases this attribute.
What are they not good at:
They have a hard time dissipating heat, a vest makes this a bigger problem.
They are not particularly quiet, and a vest makes them more noisy.

Also, a great number of the dogs that are injured are injured in the head neck areas where a vest doesn't help.
They are pricey pieces of equipment, increasing the total cost of a K-9 program if they were to become an industry standard. In a situation where poorly funded K-9 Units are often the first places administrators cut back on funding(I believe because they know that the dedicated handlers will find a way to take care of the program they love, even if out of their own pockets) the investment would be better spent on better dogs, better training. Even if the $$ is donated then I still believe that the only real benefits are too the manufacturers of the vests. Unlike with vests on humans, I have yet to hear a story about a dog's life being saved by one. Just like humans I expect when I do most will be the result of bad tactical application of the dog, but the vest company will tout its role in the saving of the dog and so will the handler (since who wants to say I should have handled it better to your Chief).

I find these posts of great interest as the general opinion of vests is good,why because the public only see them as the same as a human vest and do not realise that a dog is faster and able to escape most situations,if correctly deployed.
If only the public could be informed of the problems and comments on this list,then perhaps they would donate money to a more worthy cause as mentioned.But big business has a better PR than the dog handler

Thank you all for your input, it sounds like the general consensus is that vests arent a positive. Im very gratefull to have access to such a array of experienced ,seasoned advisors. I seriously wonder if it would be possible to get such a depth and breadth of experience via any other medium for any amount of money, and here it is for the asking. Thanks everyone.

Just another slant on the body armour. Im thinking that even if the armour defeated a rifle or heavy calibre handgun round the dog would probabaly still be stopped.

All that kinetic energy that the projectile is carrying has to go somewhere and given that a dogs body mass is lighter than a mans surely it would case damage to the dog internally, break ribs, haemorrage internally etc.

Maybe someone has some war stories re kevlar and dogs.

SOME VEST COME WITH HANDLE THAT CAN BE BERU DANGEROUS TO THE DOG IN CASE HE GOT HOOKED BY AN OBSTACLE TREES FENCES ETC . OTHER THING ABOUT VEST IT OFFER A GREAT GRIP FOR THE BAD PERSON TO GRAB THE DOG AND KEEP HIM AWAY FROM HIS BODY.