A police K-9 is in hot pursuit of an armed and dangerous suspect.

Like an Olympic sprinter, the police dog is quickly gaining ground on the bad guy. The suspect is no match for the highly trained and svelte Belgian malinois that cuts through the night like a missile.

The dog is now 15 feet from the bad guy. The suspect suddenly whirls around, lifts his right arm, and fires two shots, one which strikes the police dog.

If the K-9 wasn't sporting body armor, this might be the end of his story. But fortunately for this police K-9, he was well equipped. While he certainly felt the force from the 9mm round, the shot was nonlethal thanks to the bulletproof vest he was wearing.

So how exactly do ballistic vests work? 

Simply put, bulletproof vests are designed to diffuse a bullet’s energy and deform it on impact, which slows the round and distributes the energy throughout the whole vest. This minimizes blunt force trauma to the gunshot victim.

Soft body armor, such as Brady’s K-9 Fund vests created by LOF Defence, are designed using interlaced strands of Kevlar, a superstrong, synthetic fiber that is 5 times stronger than steel. The net-like design of Kevlar helps to catch a bullet on impact, similar to how a tennis net stops a tennis ball. Ultimately, the bullet gets robbed of the energy that makes it so deadly. Because of the incredible technology of Kevlar, a police dog that gets shot while wearing a ballistic vest will likely only suffer a bruise rather than a bullet hole that could prove fatal. 

Remember: police dogs routinely face dangerous assignments and circumstances. If you would like to help protect police dogs in the line of duty by providing them with top-of-the-line LOF StreetFighter K-9 ballistic vests, please go to our donations page or click on the button below. No contribution is too small.