EDO K9 Harness

SOFT-GOODS DESIGN • TECHNICAL GEAR DESIGN

DISCIPLINES

On-site research / Field T&E / Materials & hardware / Factory handoff

PHASE 01

Research & MILITARY CASE STUDIES

STUDIES / ON-SITE / INTERVIEWS

I spent time on-site with working-dog units, watching real training scenarios and speaking with officers instead of designing from a spec. The core insight came from the handlers: dogs don't sweat like we do. They dump heat through respiration and conduction, so once a harness traps heat against the body, the dog burns energy just trying to stay cool.

01 — A Case for the Cooling Pad

To validate the design direction, I reviewed a clinical trial on military working dogs (PMC9494994), which measured core temperature, blood pressure, and pulse rate across three cooling conditions during field exercise in the heat.

13 dogs

Military working dogs, Valencia, Spain

3 vests

Conditions: no vest, phase-change vest, evaporative vest

20 minutes

Time running at 10 km/h, roughly 3.8 km

88˚F

Peak ambient temperature during trials

EDO K9 Harness being worn during live-fire training exercises with law enforcement officers.

106.2˚F

peak core temp with no vest, at arrival

-1.1˚F

Lower on arrival wearing the evaporative vest

02 — Coverage, Not just cooling

The rigid, pre-frozen pack in the study wrapped only the cranial half of the trunk. Its smaller surface area likely limited how much heat it could pull, regardless of how cold it got. The evaporative vest wrapped the full trunk, giving it more skin contact to work across.

Evaporation also keeps drawing heat for as long as the panel stays wet, rather than losing effect as a frozen pack warms toward body temperature. The evaporation pad can activate in minutes with whatever water is on hand, no freezer required between deployments.

-2.5˚F

Lower core temp vs standard harness

60 minutes

held below the 105˚F danger zone

03 — design justification

WHY THE EDO COOLING PAD IS WATER-BASED

The case study data points squarely at the evaporative approach: a water-saturated pad, sized to the trunk, activated by wetting rather than pre-freezing.

The EDO cooling pad follows that principle directly: a refillable water reservoir seated against the EDO-cut airflow channels, so evaporation and convection work the same surface at once.

No freezer, no ice pack logistics. a handler wets the pad from a canteen in the field.

PHASE 02

IDEATION

SKETCHES

The concept introduces two things working together: a patent-pending EDO-cut panel that opens airflow channels across the dog's chest and back, and an integrated Cooling Pad system that pulls heat by evaporation and convection.