Dogs, whether trained to attack or not, can deter some – but not all – burglars.

Those of us who love dogs sometimes partially justify our pleasure at owning a dog (or multiple dogs) by saying they not only provide us with pleasure and companionship, they are also an excellent burglar alarm and home defense system.

And some of us not only say that, but sincerely believe it, too.

The Value of a Dog When You’re Also at Home

It is true that if we’re at home, we may respond to see why our dog is barking – assuming it isn’t one of those dogs with a ‘hair trigger’ that barks at every passing car and pedestrian.  It is also true that most of the time – nearly all the time but perhaps not absolutely all the time – the dog will bark if someone comes to the door.  And we like to think, although we’ve probably never tested it out for sure – that if someone actually did break into our home while we were present, the dog would bark and alert us to that fact, and possibly even attack the intruder as well.

So there is some truth that a dog can be a type of living burglar alarm, and might possibly attack an intruder as well.  On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d rely on either of those things – I’ve owned plenty of German Shepherds over the years, and sometimes, for the strangest of reasons, they’ve not made a sound when visitors have arrived, and I’m far from sure I could rely on them doing anything more than simply barking at an intruder.

Indeed, few people realize this, but most German Shepherds are actually cowards – sure, the police dogs and civilian guard dogs are carefully selected to be the more aggressive animals to start with, and are given extensive training; but a regular domestic pet type German Shepherd is as likely to run and cower under the kitchen table as he/she is to attack an intruder if the intruder knows how to correctly confront the dog.

There’s one last factor to consider as well.  If you do get into a confrontation with an intruder, your dog is a ‘wild card’.  It might start jumping up on the intruder, it might start jumping up on you; who knows what it might do.  And if you’re in a situation where have no alternative but to resort to deadly force to protect yourself and your loved ones, having a dog frantically running around is only going to make matters worse for you, rather than better.

Don’t get us wrong.  We’re not saying that having a dog is a bad thing at all.  Quite the opposite.  We’re dog lovers and always feel safer with a dog in the house, too.

But we are saying that having a dog in your house is only one part of an overall program of ‘hardening’ your house and making it intruder-proof.

Dogs in Home Invasions

There is an extremely nasty type of violent crime; often semi-senseless and random in nature.  That is when criminals aggressively attack a home and its residents.  Unlike most ‘normal’ burglars, they don’t care if you’re home – in some cases they might even prefer it.

Rapists in particular would much prefer to be able to carry out their behavior in the comfort, privacy and security of your home, rather than on a street, behind a bush, risking discovery and in a much less convenient place.  In your house they can take their time, and so on and so on through a series of increasingly nightmarish possible scenarios.

The good news is that home invasions are extremely rare.  But they do sometimes happen.  You probably don’t know anyone who has been struck by lightning, and you probably don’t know anyone who has won a state lottery jackpot either.  But you do know that both types of events occur regularly, and so you may occasionally buy lottery tickets and if you’re in a thunderstorm, you take precautions to avoid a bolt of lightning arcing its way down to you.

So while you don’t need to obsess about becoming a victim to a home invasion, you also shouldn’t decide that it could never happen to you and therefore will never happen to you.  A few small and prudent precautions are called for.

Home invaders won’t be deterred by dogs.  At best, they’ll simply trick them into getting trapped in another room, or outside, or something.  At worst, they’ll viciously kill or wound them.

The Value of a Dog When You’re Not at Home

Most people believe that having a dog either inside their home, or running freely around in their fenced-in yard around their house, will protect them from having their house broken into.

This is half right.  If a casual burglar is simply walking up and down your street, and looking for the easiest house to break into, then the presence of any type of dog will move a house from ‘temptingly vulnerable’ to ‘too much of a hassle and not worth the bother’, and he’ll instead choose your dogless neighbor’s house.

No burglar wants either the noise and attention a barking dog will create, nor the risk of having the dog bite him.

So if you just have an average ordinary residence with nothing to distinguish it from other residences, a dog will make a big difference.

But what if there is something special about your residence and/or what you have in it?  If your property is down a long driveway and totally private, so that burglars can operate without fear of being seen, that makes it more tempting.  If you have valuables in the house, then maybe a resourceful burglar has been tipped off about that (or maybe he has ‘cased’ your property) and he is now more focused on your property in particular.

What About a Dog’s Value as a Preventive Measure Then?

If you’re a dog lover, what follows may seem impossible, unthinkable, and extremely unlikely.  But most burglars are not dog lovers, and neither are they reasonable ordinary decent people who are constrained by the usual behavioral norms of the society we live in.

So, guess what.  If a burglar really wants to get into your property, and you have a dog protecting it, he’ll simply poison your dog.  Some dogs can be trained to refuse even the most tempting of dog treats and tasty raw steaks, but most dogs will voraciously grab any such food items and happily eat them up as quickly as they can, without stopping to question their good fortune in scoring some bonus food from a friendly stranger.

And if there happened to be rat poison or sedatives or narcotics or anything else as part of the food, they won’t even notice until it is too late.  If you’re a dog owner, you might even do this ‘trick’ as a way of getting your dog to accept tablets sometimes, so you know that it works.

Here’s a news story about a couple with four Boxer dogs, all of whom were (thankfully only) sedated to the point where burglars could enter their yard, walk past the sleeping dogs, then cut down and make off with a bunch of marijuana plants.

The point we’re making is simply this.  You probably know whether there is anything particularly tempting about your property or not.  If there isn’t, then a dog will help keep away an ordinary burglar who is simply ‘picking the low-lying fruit’ in your neighborhood.  But if either your property’s location or its contents, or your own status/situation in the community is such as to make it conceivably a target for a focused professional burglar, then a dog won’t be much help to you at all.

Dogs are a bit like locks.  You know the saying – ‘locks are for honest people’.  So too are dogs.  Both dogs and locks deter very casual criminals, and keep honest people honest.  But for the hardened criminal, neither locks nor dogs will prevent them from attempting an attack on your property and potentially on yourself.