I wrote previously its silly to take your dog. And I actually have a dog that is trained and capable for defensive action. It bothers me that others would risk their domestic animal in this situation.
Simply don't. No upside and lots of downsides.

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:
I wrote previously its silly to take your dog. And I actually have a dog that is trained and capable for defensive action. It bothers me that others would risk their domestic animal in this situation.
Simply don't. No upside and lots of downsides.

Yup; people only wanna hear what they wanna hear.

I gave it a shot. Protection dogs cost a small fortune - ever ask “why?”

Let them be your early warning detection system; but they are highly situational. Meaning lots and lots of daily work to teach anything. Bite work is its own thing. Even then wold-class IGP/Ring competition is not real-world doggo protection.

Yup, sure do. I train them starting as a puppy to guard the door, house, etc. I train them with drills. I give a command “achtung” then go to the safe, grab firearm/light/spare mag, and we work the perimeter of the home, and the property line. Ears shooting up towards the stars at the ready. They hear something I don’t, they bark to notify. If they smell an animal, they bark to alert. I consider it part of the program. Have surveillance cams, home alarm, and the k9 is a big part of the overall defense plan. Neighbors really like it too. They’ll text if they hear something odd knowing I’ll go out. I’ve caught some idiots up to no good and they do not return. K9 needs to be trained though. I do Schutzhund training. I used to title them but these days I just do everything on my own. Protection, obedience and some light tracking work. I focus on a lot of bite work and will pay a trainer I know to come by now instead of doing formal Schutzhund work with the local club. Too time consuming and I learned what I needed to learn to mostly do it on my own now.

Nope. I've had a Bull mastiff and a French mastiff who would always put themselves between my wife and strangers until they took cues from my wife as to who was friend or foe. They loved people, but only after they knew they were okay. When I would come home late at night from hunting they would stand at the end of the bed and growl until they knew it was me.

I think I would go check to see what the disturbance was and leave them inside to protect my wife. Plus, I wouldn't be distracted by them.

Nope, I have two Labs and they love all people and dogs (which they liberally define as anything with four legs).

Our smart girl knows not to bark. Our happy boy will bark at anything. So neither is that useful as an alarm, even.

If I go out to investigate a “bump in the night”, it is most likely the dogs are in the backyard and I need to make sure they are ok. They are best safe inside where I don’t have to worry about them.

The current dog is 3/4 GSD,1/4 whippet, 1/4 Jack Russell...
I understand what the breeder was attempting to get, and with my Ziva, they didn't get it.
Unfortunately, my girl, is useless in regards to protection /guarding. Now if I was confronting a fleeing rabbit, squirrel, cat or opossum...she'd be great - but you'd never be able to tear her attention away from her target fixation...

My dog would probably go after "bad" people but you never know. He does have extremely good hearing and is the best alert system. I would hold tight in the house, no point in stepping out into a bad situation.

This one stays inside with wife and/or grandkids. Will be fully trained shortly.

Stella 10 mths 2 edited by Jorge Jimenez, on Flickr

Good looking dog for sure and actually the only breed I fear.

I'd put my dog in with my wife to both are out of the way before I went outside to check.

I don't. I've got two big German Shepherds but I would be concerned about them either being a concern in a shooting type scenario, whether the "problem" is two legged or four.

Our dogs sleep in bed with us. Once asleep, they'd miss a nuclear blast. When awake, one barks at birds and cartoon characters in TV commercials. The other mostly ages closer to death.

If I suspect something outside, the dogs stay on the bed and I take Mr. Remington and Mr. Glock.

quote:

Originally posted by Some Shot:

quote:

I'm not going to cower inside and call 911.

Ugly choice of words.

Were you born to live by the gun?

I'm not afraid of anyone. I hate thieves. I protect my family.
I'll die trying.

I don’t have a dog and therefore the question is meaningless for me personally, but like so many threads here, this one piqued my interest and curiosity.

Questions about how to respond to a bump in the night often generate a lot of discussion with varied responses. The most silly in my view is, “I’m going to hole up in the bedroom and call 911.” That’s silly because it assumes that “bump in the night” always refers to a verified intrusion: Breaking wood and glass, loud footsteps, barking dog, shouts of “Billy Bob, I know you’ve been screwing my wife, and I’m going to kill you!” etc.

In such a (highly unlikely for most of us) situation, then barricading the bedroom door and having the police respond to handle it makes the most sense. Some people have been through scenario-based training classes that demonstrated how vulnerable a single homeowner would be if attempting to locate and engage an aggressive armed intruder in such a situation. But how often do we know that a strange sound was made by an intruder? I have gotten up in the night countless times to investigate strange noises, and never once was it due to an intruder. So if the choices are having the police come to break in and clear the house; thinking, “Oh, it’s probably just the wind,” and going back to sleep; or checking ourselves, most of us are going to choose the last.

All that, however, refers to a bump (strange noise) that we believe came from inside the house, and I must believe that if the noise is outside, then that changes things entirely. Even ignoring any legal considerations which could be very significant in my state, why would I want to willingly surrender the vast tactical advantages I would have by leaving my residence to go out patrolling in the dark?

At this point someone could respond by saying that our choices wouldn’t be any different than with a noise in the house. Well, not really. First and foremost, if I have good evidence that someone is prowling around outside, the police could investigate without having to break through a door and confront an armed man (me). The one time in the nearly 30 years I’ve lived in my present house that I saw footprints in the snow, I did call the police. Even without such definitive evidence, calling the police could still be appropriate and would usually make more sense than wondering around outside myself with flashlight and gun in hand and possibly encountering a neighbor who also decided to investigate a strange noise with gun in hand.

If I decided to just go back to sleep and was concerned enough, I could take measures to help ensure I would be awakened by any break in attempt.

Now, however, it’s time to admit that this is all highly situational dependent. What I described above would be most applicable to someone like me who lives in a residential area even if the neighbors aren’t in spitting distance. I’m pretty sure that applies to most of us here, but what if it doesn’t? What if you’re out in the country a mile or more from the nearest neighbor and everyone in the community knows you store your gold bullion or toilet paper stash in an outbuilding separate from the house? Or even what if you’re in a residential area but still store your gold or toilet paper in a detached garage and leave a side door unlocked?

In such situations there’s a lot more to consider than whether it would be appropriate to take a dog along on a search and possibly destroy mission.

My dogs are a supplemental alarm system. I would keep them inside. The Belgian Malinois/border collie mix is protective/tenacious and at 50lbs is a real scrapper for her weight. The Great Pyrenees/Amstaff mix is an athletic tank at 90lbs and very protective but I have no idea how they would react in such a situation. I have no doubt both dogs would protect us but on the other hand it would really seem to needlessly complicate the situation. I have plenty of motion lights and a couple of cams so I’d have a decent viewable buffer. Even if I did not have the lights and cams I’d probably leave the dogs inside as that is where my family would be and I have zero doubts the dogs would be protective.

I investigate bumps in the night each and every time, but I leave the dog with Mrs. Flash.

I've been trained in clearing a house so I'm not really worried at all about that.

The one really interesting bump in the night wasn't a bump at all, it was a motion detector light turning on in the middle of the night in the area of the second hallway. There's no way I would've just spent the rest of the night waiting for someone to come further in the house so I checked and found no one. The light's on a timer and it finally turned itself off.

Did the same thing a few nights later so I threw it away and put in a new motion detector light. Problem solved. It was intermittently tripping itself.

My lab pretty much goes wherever I go. He'll alert us if anything or anybody is around, but everybody he sees is his new best friend. He'd help a burglar carry stuff out.

A bump in the night can be dangerous. Very dangerous!

A friend of mine put some shelves up in the laundry room.

Middle of the night, the shelves collapsed, making a big racket and waking my friend from a sound sleep.

He jumped up, was going to get his gun from the dresser, forgot about the storage trunk at the foot of the bed.

He tripped on the trunk, broke his toe, writhing around in agony on the floor, unable to reach his gun or his phone.

Wife got up, went to investigate, found the shelves that had fallen, then got dressed and drove him to the hospital.

There is long story involved with this situation so I wont into all the details: My entire PD had organized a no holds barred hunt for a brazen, violent serial rapist who was targeting a subdivision. After coming off an all night surveillance I went to eat breakfast at a restaurant in that same subdivision. While I ate, the rapist found a side door to a garage open. Once inside the garage, he used a hammer he found in the garage to chop a hole in the drywall surrounding the door leading to the homes interior. He then reached through the hole and unlocked the door. He then raped and terrorized the woman resident while I sat in walking distance from him as he invaded the house. When interviewed by detectives, the woman told us she heard the chopping of the drywall but did not think it was a problem, so she did nothing!
It is often pointed out that its very risky to search for an intruder in your home. But, when you know something has alerted you to a suspicious situation, noise or person, take some kind of action. Barricade yourself or check on loved ones. Maybe a limited search. But do something. Take action. Call 9-1-1 if need be. But do something. If your dog has alerted you, trust him!

When my K9 was alive I would send him out into the backyard for an "area search" just like if we were at work. He would instantly change from couch mode to work mode with a single command. Our backyard was fenced in so he knew the perimeter to check and he could do it efficiently and quickly.

Now I have two Boxers that are about useless unless there is a squirrel in someone's yard three doors down. One is scared of everything and the other is as blind as could be.

quote:

Originally posted by DTREND75:
When my K9 was alive I would send him out into the backyard for an "area search" just like if we were at work. He would instantly change from couch mode to work mode with a single command. Our backyard was fenced in so he knew the perimeter to check and he could do it efficiently and quickly.

Now I have two Boxers that are about useless unless there is a squirrel in someone's yard three doors down. One is scared of everything and the other is as blind as could be.

GSDs and the like can do the same trick around your truck/car. Fun stuff.