01-05-2014, 09:33 PM
bwaites Wrote:IF you have a dog with PROFESSIONAL training, they MIGHT be depended upon to be helpful.
Our neighborhood had a one night rash of burglaries about 6 years ago. 9 OCCUPIED homes in a lakeside setting were broken into in the 4-6 AM time frame. One of those had a German Shepherd roaming the house and a dog door to the garage. The suspects entered the house manipulating a sliding glass door that was locked. They found keys to the SUV in the garage, loaded the loot, and left, making their way through eight more houses. 3 of those also had large breed dogs, including our Pit Bull. NOT ONE OF THE DOGS EVEN SOUNDED THE ALARM THAT SOMETHING WAS UP!
They entered our house through a back garage door, then an interior unlocked door from the garage. (Terrible OPSec on my part. the exterior door has been replaced with a steel frame, steel core wooden door and the interior garage door is now deadbolted.)
All four of us with large breed dogs THOUGHT our dogs would make noise, at least. None of us ever figured out why they didn't.
We now have significantly upgraded our alarm system in several different ways, but we learned that unless your dogs are exceptionally well trained, or you get very lucky, dogs aren't as good a system as we had hoped.
That's surprising that none of those dogs didn't raise the alarm. I've always had dogs and figured they were at least an early warning system. We had a couple Goldens and they would bark at everything and anything. Now we have a Pit Bull and as far as home defense forget about it. She rarely barks and if someone broke in to our house she'd maybe lick them to death. She is a great family pet, for the most part the Pit Bull reputation is media hype.
From a practical stand point dogs shouldn't be part of a home defense plan unless you are prepared to commit to a serious and ongoing training program. Then a Pit Bull would be formidable.