By Jeff Proctor
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — More than a decade has passed since Susie Jean’s father-and-son German shepherds, Max and Shadow, lost their battles with cancer.
Jean still misses them to this day.
But sorrow has not been a wasted emotion for Jean, who has pretty much dedicated her life to helping animals ever since.
Her most visible project is Vest ‘N Police Dog Protection which, since the spring of 2002, has put protective body armor on nearly 600 police dogs in 41 states.
Jean runs the operation as a one-woman band out of her home in Socorro. The business depends largely on donations, although Jean has been trying for three years to get a bill passed at the Legislature that would change the purpose of the state’s law enforcement protection fund to include protective equipment for dogs.
Had it not been for Max and Shadow - and Jean’s love for the shepherds - the business would never have come to pass.
The whole thing started when she was living in Douglasville, Ga. It was spring 2002, a few months after the second of the two shepherds had died, and Jean was watching an episode of the popular Fox television show “America’s Most Wanted.”
“I saw this video of a K-9 officer running after a criminal, and the dog was shot,” Jean said in an interview. “The dog just got right back up and knocked the criminal over before his handler arrived. The officer was just yelling: ‘You shot my dog! You shot my dog!’
“Of course, by then, I was in tears - my dogs’ passings were still very fresh. I just missed them so much; I still do. So I turned to my husband and said: ‘These dogs aren’t protected at all. I’ve got to do something.’ ”
Jean called her local police department and asked whether its two police dogs had protective vests. The answer was no, they’re too expensive.
So Jean went to work. She gathered donations and hooked up with a local supplier in Georgia who sold her the vests for half the usual price of $1,500 apiece. (The supplier has supported Jean’s efforts ever since.)
Pretty soon, the police department in Douglasville had two more dogs. Jean got them two more vests.
Then she was approached by a lawyer who said she had better start a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. So she did exactly that.
“From there, it just started to bloom,” Jean said. “I was able to vest 64 police dogs before I moved to New Mexico in 2006.”
In the five years since, with the help of the launch of her website, Jean has continued to put vests on dogs.
The vests themselves are customfit after taking seven measurements from the dogs. German shepherds and Belgian Malinois are the most common dogs used in police work. Jean has gotten vests for hounds and Labrador retrievers, which are often used in drug detection work.
In addition to saving dogs’ lives, the vests are a good economic investment, Jean said.
“It can cost up to $40,000 to train these dogs,” she said. “And there’s a lot of time invested, too: Officers are with their dogs 24/7. If one of them gets shot or stabbed, all of that is lost. So what’s $700 to get one protected?”
Most police dogs, Jean said, serve for about five years - from age 3 to about 8.
Five years is exactly how long the vests last, she said.
Testimonials on her website tell stories of dogs who would not have survived had it not been for the vest.
In her spare time, which there isn’t much of, Jean fosters animals. She figures more than 100 have spent time in her home through the years.
Most of her focus is on Vest ‘N Police Dog Protection, Jean said, which has been hit hard by the recent economic downturn.
Still, she said New Mexico has been an ideal place from which to operate the business.
“I’m an animal lover, and this is a real animal lover state,” Jean said. “I’m retired now, and this is my opportunity to give something back. I do this project in memory of my dogs.”
Copyright 2011 Albuquerque Journal