The Arlington Police Department K-9 Unit is mourning the loss of their Belgian Malinois who died from heat exhaustion while out on a search yesterday afternoon. Corporal Eric Braden with the Lubbock Police K-9 unit says the city of Lubbock has the dogs live with the officers in order to build a strong relationship.

Braden has trained five year old Bruno since he was a puppy, straight from Holland. The Belgian Malinois is trained and specialized for narcotic searches, and recieves all of his commands in dutch. Braden says the K-9 unit makes it their duty to know the dogs inside and out in order to detect if they are ever showing signs of overheating.

“The dog is with us 24/7, so you get to really know that dog and how they act, if they’re doing well, if they’re sick,” said Braden. “So when we are working and it’s extremely hot day, we already know that we’re going to have to condense, if we’re doing an area search, we’re going to have to limit that search because the dog is going to get hot very quickly.”

Braden said that the unit does everything they can to accomidate the dogs during these extreme temperatures. The police vehicles are specially equipped to cool the dogs down, and he is constantly aware of the exact temperature of the vehicle.

“What we have is a system, called a hot pop system, where it has a digital read out so I know what the temperature is in that car at all times.” said Braden. “Say the engine stops for some reason or the air conditioner stops working or the air conditioner quits working– If the temperature gets above a certain temperature, the horn will start honking SOS, the windows roll down and the fan comes on.”

Braden said that something people need to remember, is that these dogs care about staying loyal to their owner, which is why they push themselves so hard.

“Their whole sole purpose is they want to to please their handler, we give them all their love and affection, so what theyre doing is pleasing us they have such a strong drive that they want to work that they’ll keep pushing to try to please the handler.”