I'm not sure if this belongs in the protection topic? Maggie has no protection training.

We had an attempted burglary yesterday. The burglar ran off either in response to Maggie's barking or because of the alarm that went off when he opened the back door. After the burglar left, Maggie was subjected to the alarm going off for a long time, and a swarm of policemen moving through her home.

Since the incident, Maggie has been alerting to every little thing. We live in a poor section of the city, the sidewalk is about 10 feet from the house, homeless people raid our garbage looking for usable scraps. This results in Maggie alerting almost constantly now.

Should I just give her some time, and ignore her agitation, or does Maggie need something else? She knows "quiet" but we have not worked up a long duration on that command. We have always encouraged her to alert to noise on the front porch. (We don't have a doorbell, Maggie serves the purpose fine.)

Back history: We were burglarized once when she was a puppy, but her crate was in a distant room and the burglars left that room pretty much alone. (The second dog was loose and likely hiding in that room. He may have felt cornered enough to speak up when a stranger entered the room.) She showed no signs of trauma after that break-in, although I was more shaken due to the more extensive damage and loss that time.

This time there was nothing broken (we had stupidly stopped checking window latches over the winter, so they just opened the window instead of breaking one) nothing stolen. I'm thankful to God for that. I'm just wondering if I should do anything about Maggie now.

To be honest I wouldn't make too much of a fuss - take her for walks at 'busier' times so she doesn't get too stressed. Buy her a large raw bone to keep her occupied, see if that will distract her.

Will she speak on command? I would take her away from the house and work on 'speak' and 'quiet' - then translate that practice into everyday life if you need to.

Praise her once when she alerts, and then immediately begin doing something else.
You don't want to completely desensitize her to outside noises- it may save your life some day.

When she barks at the wind blowing, or the neighbor checking his mailbox or what have you, just tell her "good Watch", and then move into something else.
Call her to you, give her a nice pat, and then begin practicing your obedience to calm her down and redirect her attentions.

She'll relax soon enough on her own, once she realizes not every noise is a potential burglar. In the meantime, let her know she's a good girl, and then distract her.

Thanks guys.

As for the raw bones, she's been raised on raw since 11 weeks, and is a big, powerful girl. I've not yet found anything that holds up to her jaws for more than 20 minutes, except beef leg bones, that I worry about being too hard for her teeth, and antlers, which already is her primary toy. (A 4 point antler will last several months, everything else we've given her is not durable enough for unsupervised play. Some "indestructible" toys were broken in 20 minutes with Maggie.)

Good point about more exercise to help her with the anxiety. I'm trying to convince hubby to take us on a country field trip today, and take a nice family hike. Otherwise we may get out the bike and do a run around the block.

So, you are in favor of rewarding inappropriate alerts, and not asking for quiet after I've looked at the source of the alarm?

Reward briefly, and then redirect.
Don't make the praise sufficient to encourage false alerts, but enough to let her know you acknowledge her attempts to tell you something.

Just a quick, "good girl, good Watch", immedietly followed by "Come, sit, down, sit, heel, down, sit..." and so forth to take her mind off it.

Denise, let me say sorry to you and your family. This cannot be easy on anyone. Glad no one was hurt and nothing was missing.

This is only a day old for everyone, I am sure that Maggie is not the only one in the family worked up about this. I can tell you we have a violent break-in a few Springs ago and it was not easy on us.... and it had nothing personal to do with us. It was just across from our sub-division. They actually shot the man in the leg durning the struggle. We live in the sticks and there where helicopters with search lights flying for hours and cops all over the place. It kept us from sleeping well for a few nights... that was with two German Shepherd and a loaded gun.

I guess what I am trying to say is.... give it time for everyone and lets hope this event never repeats itself.

Thanks for the sympathy, but robbery is so run-of-the-mill here we don't even always tell our family when it happens. I've been here for 6 years, and we've had 5? burglaries, one small theft, one car tampering incident, and then the druggie that came crashing through the front window. We were of course alarmed and upset when ADT called us, but after the cops left we were just grateful that everything was in tact and where it belonged. Maggie is young enough that this is all still new, but the rest of us are very happy that there was no damage, the dogs are safe, nothing is missing. We maybe have renewed vigor in our quest to get out of here, but that's about it.

Some people have house payments, we have robberies. *shrug*

Wow... Denise 5 in 6 years. Saying you guys are tough is an understatement.

Be safe and best of luck.