I was home alone the other night with my 2 yr gsd. She sleeps in my room for about an hour then goes and guards the front door. About 2 in the morning she came running upstairs barking, hair satnding up jumping at the front door. The next morning I went out and the porcelin figures were turned upside down like someone was looking for a key. She turned 2 in May and has become so much more protective. Weeks before I asked my husband for an alarm system...he replies you have a 2 yr old GSD no one is coming in here!

 Quote: Heather Tittsworth

... The next morning I went out...

I don't wait. As long as I'm now awake , I'll praise her for alerting, take her out front, let her check the place out, then tell her everything is o.k., and we can go back to sleep.

At that time of night in my neighborhood, it's usually teen-agers doing car clouts or looking for unlocked cars in the street/driveways.

Mike

As a woman I would not go outside in the middle of the night with any dog that has not been fully protection trained unless I had a gun. A determined man can hurt your dog or make him/her back down if they are untrained and not solid. It is hard to know how a dog will react to an attack. This is just my opinion, I'm sure there are much more knowledgeable people on this board.

Good Dog!!!

Just a barking dog inside a house can be a great deterrent.

Around here when Starbuck is barking it is most likely an animal; although she does bark at the sprinklers too.

I tell her good girl and “Easy”. If she doesn’t calm down then I will cautiously go outside. The last thing I need is to encounter a coyote or have her take off after a rabbit, skunk, possum, etc.

OK, I have a funny and a scary story.

We have 3 dogs, all vocal, ranging anywhere from somewhat to obnoxiously so. We also have horses and live on a dead-end road surrounded by state forest. We are kind of remote and can't see our nearest neighbor, but we are not really isolated by any means.

Anywho, one night we are awakened by our biggest bigmouth barking like the police are breaking down the front door. It takes about three minutes just to get him (and now the others) to shut up so I can give a listen and try to figure out what he's barking at. Coyotes? A distant barking dog? What?

I can't hear a thing (no surprise there), so I tell everyone to shut up and go back to bed. The other dogs settle down, but he continues to pace, woof, growl, huff and puff for the better part of an hour. I eventually threaten him with his life and he shuts up.

OK, so we get up the next morning and go to let the dogs out and our horses are all standing in the back yard! By the looks of things they've been loose and wandering around the general vicinity for at least half the night. No real damage was done (except to our yard), but gee, if I'd given my dog the benefit of the doubt this nocturnal adventure could have been averted. I spent the better part of the morning thinking about what COULD have happened if the horses had really taken off, and vowed never again to ignore a middle of the night barking fiasco! Actually, this was a tough vow to make because my younger male is the obnoxious barker and tends to suffer from The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome, which makes it very tempting to either ignore or correct him without acually investigating the reason for his noise.

Fast forward to this week.

Same thing happens! At 3:15 AM the bigmouth suddenly goes totally ballistic. He runs out of the bedroom, down the hall and hits the front (screen) door like a ton of bricks. Remembering my vow from last summer, I get up and follow him. He's standing on his back legs, hackled from head to tail and barking like the boogeyman is out there. I call him off, tell him "quiet" and strain for the sound of horses walking down the road. Nothing! I can't hear a darn thing!

He goes back to the bedroom with me, but under protest. The minute I lay down he jumps back up and repeats the whole scenario. By now I'm thinking a fox or coyote has probably sauntered across our front lawn, but what do I know?

I get up and follow him again. I listen, but I can't see or hear a thing that seems out of place. I escort him back to the bedroom a second time and decide I may as well use the facilities while I'm up. I walk into the bathroom and glance out the front window just as the garage motion-detection light clicks on! I listen hard again and this time I hear human footsteps on the sandy road in front of our house.

OK, NOW I'm creeped out!

I run back to the bedroom and tell my hubby "Someone really IS out there!" He doesn't make a move to get up, he just asks, "Who is it?" Gee, like I'm gonna know the answer? (He's not a chicken, he's just not very functional at 3 AM!)

I walk back down the hall to the front door and I see a large vehicle parked at the end of the driveway and the silhouette of a large person walking toward the house. Mind you, I'm in my bedclothes with nothing but a screen door between me and whoever is walking up the front walkway. I wasn't about to turn on any lights, so when I called out, "Can I help you?" the person nearly jumped out of their skin.

Turns out it was my newspaper delivery person. She was new to the route and when she tried to turn around in our driveway she misjudged the width of our fence and was starting to get hung up on it. She needed someone to help guide her out. (Hey, in spite of how awkward that must have been, at least she had the smarts to ask for help. She could have really trashed the fence and we never would have known who did it!) I couldn't see her vehicle in the driveway before because it was just out of the range of the motion sensor and it's very dark here at night.

Is there a moral to this story? Maybe. I take my dog's alarms seriously, but I'd never let them go sort things out for themselves. In both cases there could have been a real disaster if I'd just opened the door and let the dogs out!

you have a 2 yr old GSD no one is coming in here!

FWIW, one of our neighbors had a large, imposing, adult GSD. Their house was cased by robbers who simply shot and killed the dog to gain access. Proof that A Smith & Wesson can still beat Fido.

Cher

If the dog has it's hackles up and is barking like crazy, I would not wait until morning to check out what alerted the dog. I would never think my house is not a target just because I have a GSD. My dog is a great alerter but if someone actually gets in the house, I am sure they would not have a problem dealing with the dog. Depends on how motivated the bad guy is. I always take for granted the burgler knows at least as much as I do about dogs and how disappointing they can be when confronted aggressivley by an intruder. Most dogs that owners think will mangle an intruder, will scram if frightened enough unless they have had formal training. An alarm backed up by a firearm is the way to go for me.

Remember, at least in my state (Cal.), that when you call 911 on a cell phone the dispatcher does not get an address. Use your house phone. Then even if something should happen and you were unable to complete the call your address would have automatically popped up when you connected. They will try a call back and then send a unit out if there is not response. I'm not sure but I think maybe they can get an address from your sell number but it takes a lot longer. I may be wrong on this, just my understanding. I have been told to always use mu house phone. My husband works nitghts and I spend a lot of time alone at night. That's why I got my dog, and own a gun.