AceK9 products like Hot-N-Pop Pro and AceWatchDog can help keep police dogs safe.AceK9

The last thing an officer wants is to return to his patrol car and find that the air conditioning has broken down while his partner is in the vehicle.

A dog handler with the Cobb County (Georgia) Police Department experienced this exact scenario in June 2023 when he left his dog in a vehicle while he attended a shooting training session. When he returned, he was shocked to find his K-9 partner, Chase, unresponsive because the vehicle’s air conditioning had failed. Despite life-saving measures, his partner succumbed to heat-related injuries.

This unfortunate situation could be prevented by equipping patrol cars with heat sensors and alarm systems, says Officer Joe Lutkowski, who has spent the last 18 years of his career as a dog handler for the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department in Pennsylvania.

Lutkowski has never lost a dog in this tragedy, but he can attest to how well protection technology works. His first patrol vehicle was equipped with an AceK9 Hot-N-Pop system.

“I remember one time I was at the station doing paperwork and one of the guys came in and said my vehicle was acting up,” he recalls. “The system had activated because the air conditioning was blowing warm air. The system worked perfectly. But without it, things could have turned out very differently.”

Learn more: Preventing heat damage in police dogs

Using the 2023 tragedy as a turning point, Cobb County has upgraded seven vehicles in its fleet with AceK9 systems. When the temperature inside the vehicle gets too hot, the vehicle’s blue lights now flash, the siren sounds, the windows roll down, the fans turn on, and alerts are sent to the dog handler and four other people.

Choosing the right technology

John Johnston is the owner of AceK9, the company that designs and manufactures the system that keeps many of the country’s police dogs safe in patrol cars.

The company was founded in 1986 when Johnston received a call for help from Deputy Ted Smith of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department. He told him that three police dogs had died in patrol cars belonging to three different police departments in the state of Florida that sweltering summer. Smith was looking for technology to prevent that from happening again, and Johnston said he didn’t hesitate to lend a hand.

Recognizing the urgent need for an alarm system to monitor temperatures in patrol cars equipped with sniffer dogs, he developed the K-9 Lifeguard, which had several features, including a horn, activation of blue lights, lowering of the two rear windows, and a buzzer worn by officers to alert them to high interior temperatures or engine failures.

Read more: More effective exposure training for K-9 teams

The success of K-9 Lifeguard sparked further innovation. Recognizing the need to improve officer safety, Johnston developed K-9 Lifesaver, a canine door-opening system that allows officers to remotely extricate their canine partners from vehicles in the event of an emergency.

Next, in 1996, the company developed Hot-N-Pop, which integrated the K-9 Heat Alarm and K-9 Door Popper into a single unit. This product is now known among dog handlers across the country as the Hot-N-Pop Pro.

“Hot-N-Pop is the best system on the market,” says Lutkowski, who adds that he has had one on his vehicle for 23 years. “John is constantly improving and improving it. His sole focus is the safety of the dog and its handler. It is one of the most advanced systems on the market.”

Updated AceK9 product line

Today the AceK9 product line includes:

• K-9 HOT-N-POP PRO, a combination K-9 heat alarm and remote door opening system, is designed to save the life of the dog in a heat-related emergency and the life of the handler in a dispute between suspects.

“Let’s say a handler leaves the dog in the car to settle a domestic dispute and then the situation turns violent,” Johnston explains. “The handler can press a button on his belt or chest and the back door of the vehicle pops open and lets the dog out. We’ve saved hundreds of lives with this system.”

A good example occurred some time ago at a rest stop on Interstate 55 in Mississippi, he explains. The officer approached a suspicious man in a car, but was attacked by two men who dragged him into the bushes with the intention of killing him. “He pressed the button on the door opener and the dog came to his aid,” he says.

• K-9 HEAT ALARM PRO, an advanced temperature monitoring system. This system activates a unique SOS pattern for the horn when an alarm is triggered. The rear windows are designed to be rolled down, but there are metal bars that hold the K-9 in place while also providing ventilation. A large fan is mounted in one of the windows that draws in outside air and provides ventilation in the car.
• ACEWATCHDOG raises the bar for K-9 safety by connecting to a Hot-N-Pop Pro or K-9 Heat Alarm Pro to send temperature and vehicle status to the cloud, allowing officers to view the vehicle’s temperature and operational status from their smartphones.

“This system allows officers to move further away from their patrol cars,” Johnston says. “Previously, they had to stay within earshot of their vehicle. They also get a text message when there’s an alert. There’s also a full alert that goes off when the dog is potentially in real trouble. Then the handler gets a call and a text message, and several other people get alerts as well, like dispatchers or supervisors or other handlers on the same shift, so someone can go back to the dog and take care of him.”

These products can be used in any police vehicle in use today that has a sniffer dog, Johnston adds. “Any vehicle from the Ford Explorer (Police Utility Interceptor) to the Chevy Tahoe can use this product,” he says. “It’s useful for police cars that have a container that can carry a sniffer dog. We have vehicle-specific wiring for those cars.”

Johnston acknowledges that there are other heat sensor systems on the market and recommends choosing a system from a company that offers reliable support throughout the product’s lifespan. All Ace systems come with QR codes that, when scanned, take the officer to instruction manuals and YouTube videos explaining operation and installation, he adds.

Johnston says he’s constantly innovating and developing new technology to keep police officers and their K-9 partners safe. In fact, he recently developed a system to prevent officers from leaving their dogs in their vehicles after a long shift.

“When they turn the car off, they get a reminder not to leave the dog in the back seat of the car,” he says. “This ensures that no sniffer dog is left behind. We are working on more advanced things, stay tuned.”

Installing the system

Choosing the right system is not enough if it is not installed correctly, Johnston adds. He advises choosing a competent company that will install the system with the utmost care and professionalism.

“Installation is the hardest part,” he says. “There’s a lot to do. The device is complicated. It takes about two days to install our products properly. You have to take the car apart to connect the doors, the engine and the like. There are temperature sensors that have to be installed.”

The temperature sensors are small and if they are not installed correctly in the right place, the dog could damage them, he adds. “We have installed dual sensors so that if one sensor fails, the other sensor will step in. If for some extreme reason both sensors are not working, the alarm will be activated immediately,” he says.

Learn more: How to maximize the benefits of sniffer dogs and drones

He stresses that not all installers are the same. “Some already know how to install our equipment correctly, others may need a little help. Therefore, it is important that the manufacturer is available to help with any questions about installation.”

After installation, the system should be tested weekly to ensure that all warning systems are working properly, he adds.

A display message on the AceK9 control head reminds officers to perform weekly system tests. The officer activates a menu button to test the system, trigger alarms, move the windows, and perform other checks to ensure the product is functioning properly.

“We encourage the concept of testing the system during our weekly training sessions,” says Johnston. “This test ensures that everything is working properly. Any mechanical part, such as the windows, will stop working if they are full of dog hair and other debris.”

If concerns or problems arise, Johnston advises having the system repaired before an actual alarm occurs.

Keep an eye on the police dogs

Even though the technology provides safety, officers still need to remain vigilant and regularly check for police dogs left alone in a vehicle, Johnston advises.

“It’s something you should do on a regular basis,” he says. “Of course, if you have AceWatchdog, you can look at your phone to see if the temperatures are OK and check the status from there. But with other systems, employees have to go back to their cars to check on them. It doesn’t take long for something bad to happen.”

Inside a vehicle, temperatures rise quickly, he adds. “AceWatchDog also sends alerts before the alarm goes off. If you get an alert that your temperature is rising, you should immediately head to your vehicle to see what’s going on,” he says.