Is a dog alarm a sufficient burglar deterrent if you don't have a dog?
Should pet owners stop crating their dogs if they want to keep their homes safe?
Shortly after I adopted Junee, a neighborhood friend adopted a Black Lab that ended up being four times bigger than my dog. And while that Black Lab has the biggest crush on Junee and there’s a 100% chance he’ll try to hump her when he sees her, as soon as Junee barks, you’d swear it was that Lab.
“She’s got a bark on her,” the owner of the Black Lab mix says every time he sees me. “You don’t ever need an alarm.”
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I laugh and nod my head because this is both a good thing and a bad thing. When you hear some dogs bark, you imagine a playful puppy greeting you at the door. Then there are dogs with guttural growls that sound like they don’t do anything but walk around tow truck parking lots on chains. Finally, there are dogs who sound like mine: the kinda dog that would make Cujo go, “OK, relax.” And that is what my dog sounds like while somehow still being physically adorable and a maximum of 32 lbs. But if you heard her before you saw her, you would swear it was another dog.
I thought about that recently while watching “ReLiving Single” Episode 16. Actresses Erika Alexander and Kim Cole listened to a bunch of fake dog alarms for those who don’t necessarily want (or can’t have) a dog but want the safety of someone thinking they have one.
One of the most entertaining parts of this video is their reaction to the dog sounds, specifically the first dog. Junee sorta sounds like that first dog. And I pondered on dog training because of it.
Old dogs, no tricks, half trained
My first dog, Shep, was the kind of dog that all the neighborhood boys would say, “That’s Shep. He ain’t gone do nothing.” That blahzay attitude pissed off my mother, especially considering she got a dog to deter burglars. Shep, who lived to be 13, also had a way with the ladies, one lady dog in particular.
Then, there was our second dog, a German Shepherd who would make people cross the street for just breathing. She didn’t have to bark at all. Black people have a complex relationship with German Shepherds, and I grew up in an all-Black neighborhood (give or take a couple). Faith wasn’t interested in being aggressive until it counted. There was a Pit Bull next door that she immediately notified that she was no punk. I cringed every time the two made eye contact and made sure those two could never be close to each other regardless of the gate. I didn’t even want to see the result of a standoff between the two.
There was also that time I met a guy while walking her. She wouldn’t stop barking, so I told him to throw a piece of paper toward me with his phone number on it. He did just that and drove off. Faith snatched that piece of paper with the guy’s phone number written on it, chewed and swallowed it. He was halfway down the street in his car with his number in her belly. I suppose she felt he wasn’t Mr. Right.
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Junee is somewhere in the middle — sometimes she’s a man hater and other times she’s excited to see a select few men in my neighborhood. (She’s also a pregnancy test if you need one.) She’s definitely more protective and more outspoken than Shep and Faith, but she’s also friendly enough to peacefully play with dogs at a dog park. Ironically, while I am a dog walker who has walked 101 dogs (not including my three), Junee is not the kind of dog that would respond well to strangers entering my home.
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Dogs, guns and alarms: Which one makes a home more secure?
My mouth dropped open when I read a quote from a burglar: “NRA sticker on car bumper = Lots of guns to steal.” But I suppose an alarm system that plays gun shot noises is not as appealing. The problem is this kind of alarm would also result in people calling the police on the homeowner, not the burglar.
And while burglars seemed to really enjoy lunch hours (12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.) and were indifferent to alarm systems (that they were confident they could disable), there was another piece of information within the post that caught my attention: “If a homeowner had a big, loud dog, most burglars would stay away. Smaller dogs don’t seem to bother them.”
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According to one inmate: “Dogs are a deal breaker for me. Big breeds, home protectors are the best to keep people out.”
But the sound of a dog may not be as convincing as actually seeing the dog in a window, and some homeowners choose to crate their dogs.