Police dog dies in hot car in Missouri after air conditioner malfunctioned

ARNOLD, Missouri — A Missouri police dog died when the air conditioning broke in the patrol vehicle he was left in, police said.

Father, a 4-year-old K-9 for the Arnold Police Department in suburban St. Louis, died Wednesday. Temperatures this week have been in the 90s, with high humidity.

A Facebook post from the Arnold Police Department states that Vader’s handler left the dog in the moving, air-conditioned vehicle while the officer performed other duties. Police say this is a practice that is “necessary and customary when the K-9 partner is not actively engaged in police work.”

But when the handler returned to the vehicle, the air conditioning system was defective, police said. The dog was taken to a veterinary clinic and initially showed signs of improvement, but later died.

Police said the department’s vehicles for use with police dogs have a system that alerts the handler by phone, activates a cooling fan and even rolls down the windows if the temperature reaches a certain level. “In this case, the heat alarm system was not activated,” police said.

It was the second fatal car crash involving a Missouri police dog this year. In June, a dog named Horus died in a hot car in Savannah, Missouri.