Alarm System, Firearm, or Protection Dog?

By Wayne Simanovich
National Champion · North American Champion · World Champion
The finest and proven protection and companion dogs. Since 1978.

No, you're not crazy. Or paranoid. The world really is less safe than it used to be, and you are doing what a sensible person does: looking at the best ways to lower the risk for you and yours.

Beyond deadbolts, walls and fences, most people land on the same three choices. An alarm system. A firearm. Or a dog. I have been training protection dogs at a world-championship level since 1978, and I have had this conversation with thousands of families. Here is how I lay it out for them. Not which one is "best." What each one actually does at the moment it matters, when someone is in your house who should not be.

First, the alarm system

A good alarm system is worth having. It's one tool in the toolbox. But be honest about what it does.

More often than not, an alarm system is nothing more than a way to gather evidence. Clues to something bad that has already happened.

It is not capable of stopping a threat.

For all its sophistication, it can fail. It can be knocked out by a storm, cut, jammed, or simply not turned on because you were only running out for ten minutes. Set up properly and working perfectly, it will notify the authorities that someone is in your home.

And then you and your family wait.

From the moment of that notification to help showing up in your driveway can be thirty minutes. A lot can happen in a thirty-minute window. And usually it's not good.

Next, the firearm

Like many good Americans, I have firearms. I've had them since I was a twelve-year-old boy walking around the farm with a .22 rifle. They've been a passion of mine ever since. My three daughters and my son were raised around them, and all of them can shoot. Nothing ensures our rights and freedoms in this country more than our founding fathers having the vision to write the Second Amendment.

And let's face it. If you bust into my bedroom in the middle of the night and I'm sitting on the edge of my bed with my wits about me, and my Wilson Combat .45, or my Glock 19, or my Remington pump pointed at you, I'm in a pretty good spot. I'm in charge. I definitely like my chances.

But the older I get, the less I sleep like I did as a young man. And when I do sleep, I'm out. If you're walking around my bedroom while I'm asleep, that's a whole different ball game.

That specific scenario is why a well-trained dog is paramount to your safety.

Those expensive, well-crafted guns are not going to wake me up. They're not going to wake you up either.

Plenty of people rely on a handgun, and rightfully so. Many firearms people scoff at a dog. I beg to differ.

What it takes to pull a trigger

We also have to be honest about what it takes to pull a trigger.

I feel like I know what I would do if my family were threatened. But let's face it, desperate people do desperate things. Drug-fueled desperation. Domestic violence. All the way down to petty crime and greed. It's hard to evaluate all of that in the moment somebody crashes through your door. Who is he? What does he want? Is he armed? Is that even a stranger? And there is no way to recall a bullet.

Within seconds, and seconds are critical, a well-bred and well-trained dog can distinguish between family and foe. In total darkness. You and I cannot do that.

A well-trained dog, and more important, a well-bred dog, takes a lot of that split-second decision making off the table. A good dog doesn't hesitate the way you and I do. A good dog gets between you and the man, and that alone changes everything about the next few seconds.

Buying time is critical in those first few seconds of a real, serious invasion of your home. The dog buys you that time. Time to wake up. Time to see what you're dealing with. Time to get to that firearm and make your decision with a clear head instead of a pounding heart.

Now look closely at the dog

A good dog, in most cases, is the alarm before the alarm. A good dog knows someone is out there before any sensor is tripped.

I know my dog does. And over the years I've had many, many clients tell me the same story: their dog started barking in the middle of the night and would not quit, and the next day they found out the neighbor's home had been invaded. Folks, that's good forewarning.

A precision-trained protection dog comes equipped with a sensory system more sophisticated than anything man has made. A dog hears what you cannot, senses trouble before any camera does, and can run faster and farther than any intruder.

A dog is "on" twenty-four hours a day, all year. Even asleep, a dog is a light sleeper. Lighter than me.

So the dog is the alarm. The dog barks, you wake up, and now you can get to that firearm with your wits about you. Unlike a wired system, the dog is a threat to the man who just came through your door. And like a firearm, a trained adult dog, trained properly, is a man stopper.

A man stopper without lethal force. Let's face it: if I can stop an intruder without killing him, there's definitely merit to that. In certain circumstances, pulling the trigger may be justified. But it certainly leaves a mess, literally and figuratively.

Unlike a firearm, your dog can never fall into the wrong hands. No one is going to take your dog away from you and use it against you.

Again, if my family is threatened, I think I know what I would do. But quite frankly, I could see someone wrestling a gun away from my wife and beating her over the head with it. When my children were young and I was traveling, if someone desperate enough had come into my home and threatened my children, I'm pretty sure I know what my wife would have done. But short of threatening her children, I'm not so convinced that firearm would have been her best friend.

A well-bred and well-trained dog acts in proportion. The dog from our program is not an "attack dog." The dog is for defense. A really well-trained dog will search out an intruder, potentially stopping him where he stands, whether he's hiding, coming at you, or even trying to leave. Once again, these few seconds are often critical. Aggression from an intruder has a higher probability of being met with exactly the right response. No more, no less.

The part the other two can't do at all

Another thing about having a great dog is the mobility. Your alarm system stays on the wall. Your firearm, most of the time, stays in the house. For a lot of people, safety ends at their own front door.

A dog goes with you. In the car. On a walk. On a run at six in the morning. At the lake house. In the hotel room. Even the best security system can't go for a spin with the top down.

Your wired security system and your firearm won't lie beside your feet when the room's a little cold. And they certainly can't go out in the backyard and play a little Frisbee with you.

And your dog comes home with you. Oftentimes a home invasion is taking place when you're not home. I can think of several families we've placed dogs with who walked in their own front door, not realizing trouble lurked inside. An unsuspecting elderly couple coming home from dinner to an active home invasion usually doesn't end well. At the very least, they're trampled while their valued possessions meet them in the hallway, then run out their front door.

If you're coming home from dinner, or from picking up the kids at school, or from a trip where you've taken your dog with you, not only do you have a different capability when you enter the home, you can bet the scent alone of a stranger in the house is not going to sit well with your dog.

I can think of one client who became a dear friend. She had been a victim of physical domestic violence. We placed her with a really nice dog from our program, and she depended on that dog everywhere she went. Grocery runs. Late-night runs to town. She even took the dog to the gym. One time she came home and sensed, the moment she came in the door, that something was not right. It wasn't but a few seconds later that her dog Quinn was doing a full hold and bark on her ex, hiding behind the coat rack in the walk-in closet in her bedroom.

No one was hurt. No one was shot. He knew how to circumvent the alarms. He was ultimately arrested. And other than the fact that he probably had to clean out his pants, there wasn't much of a mess.

If the threat of danger has changed the way you live, if you've stopped walking after dark, stopped sitting on your own porch, this is how you get that back. You can relax again. Intruders can't.

That is what we mean when we say we turn personal security into personal freedom. A dog can do things a human can't.

Alternative, or addition?

I am not telling you to rip the alarm off the wall, and nobody is getting my firearms. The dog is not a replacement for either one. A dog is what complements both of them and makes them work better.

The alarm tells someone far away that something is happening. Then response time begins. A really good dog tells you, right now, and is instantly a visual deterrent and a threat. If someone busts into your bedroom in the middle of the night and your trained German Shepherd or trained Belgian Malinois is by your side barking, that's going to give someone some pause.

The dog also puts the firearm in the hands of someone who is wide awake and has had a few seconds to at least somewhat assess what is going on. Folks, this is a better position to be in.

If I'm awake with my firearms in hand, I'm in a good spot. If I'm awake with my firearms and an 85-pound, well-trained German Shepherd by my side, I'm in a really good spot.

Not every dog can do this work. In fact, most can't, in either breed we work with, the German Shepherd or the Belgian Malinois. Sorting out the ones that can from the ones that can't is part of my job. Actually, it's been my passion my entire adult life. It's what I've done every day since 1978.

Selecting the dogs with the talent is critical. It's paramount to our success. Combine that with award-winning training and a talented staff that is equally as passionate, and the end result is an absolute joy to own.

I've won major protection dog competitions on some of the world's biggest stages. What gives me the most satisfaction are the many lives I've changed by placing what has been my passion by your side.

You and the people you love deserve peace of mind. With us, it comes when it's called, walks by your side, and curls up at your feet.

See the dogs we have available now: Protection Dogs for Sale. Or see what they cost, or call and tell us about your home and your family: 866-726-2810.

Let me know how we can help you. You'll be glad you did. Guaranteed.

....Wayne Simanovich