Naturally, dogs bark when strangers approach your property. Their keen sense of sight and smell can alert to you burglars when you are home, and potentially keep burglars away when you are out. It seems safe to assume that burglars would prefer to strike a property without a dog.
Science of Dogs Sensing Robbers
They also appear to have the ability to figure out people – good or bad! Our woofers have finely tuned senses, so when a robber appears in your home and Thor, your bold Boxer, kicks up a fuss, it's because he's not feeling the love.
They continually scan the expressions and movements of people they meet as a way to interpret and anticipate intentions. So, even friendly dogs will be able to tell the difference between a visit from a new Pet Sitter and an ill-intentioned intruder who is sneaking around outside.
Burglars interviewed in a series of reports on increasing levels of crime indicate that a loud, barking dog is the deal breaker for them—the combination of attention-grabbing sound and the unpredictability of a dog's actions will almost always cause the burglar to move on.
According to research, dogs are able to do so because of their excellent smelling, acute hearing, and varied eyesight. When your dog perceives danger or an intruder in its territory, he will try to alert you and get your attention by incessantly barking.
Depending on your dog, they may also show some signs of aggression as well. Your dog may bark angerly, growl, show their teeth, lunge at the person, or even snap! If you have a dog that is a protector, they may also try and guard you against the "bad" person they are sensing or pace around you with agitation.
If your pooch is around a bad person, the signs will be very different. Your dog is likely to be backing away, have its tail tucked, have its ears down, whine, and may even be afraid to go close to the person. Some dogs may show signs of aggression around a bad person such as exposing the teeth, snapping, and growling.
The police then collect an odor sample from the suspect or victim, as well as from a few other people not thought to be involved with the case, and place them in jars. The dog then smells the sample “evidence” scent collected at the scene, and is then allowed to have a good whiff of the other odors.
Many dogs will bark if they sense some type of threat, proclaiming "I'm here protecting this place so don't mess with me." The sound of this bark is usually sharp, loud and authoritative. Honing this instinct with training can actually help protect your home and family.
Answer: It highly depends on the individual case. Compared with the untrained dogs, trained dogs tend to protect their owners if attacked. But it doesn't necessarily meant that a normal family pet dog would do nothing when a break-in happens. Some of family dogs would also try their best to defend their owners.
Guarding – Your dog adores you and wants nothing more than to make sure you are safe. This unconditional devotion can mean that they need to be there in order to protect you from outside threats (not like there is any likelihood of someone lurking in the bathroom, but hey, anything can happen).
Dogs are able to identify, with ease, the scent of someone they recognize over the someone they have yet to meet. Even before an individual walks through the door, dogs have been alerted to who it is using their senses of smell and hearing.
Dogs can pick up on these changes in scent and may become more alert or protective as a result. In other words, if someone is feeling "evil" or malicious, their body chemistry may change, and a dog may pick up on this through their sense of smell.
Some people sell stolen and lost animals for research and veterinary institutions that use dogs and cats for testing and biomedical experimentation. These groups are often referred to as Class B dealers. They are brokers who acquire their animals through flea markets, newspaper adds, and other less savory sources.
Barking dog
All dogs are loud and attract attention. No thief wants to deal with this type of inconvenience on their way. However, if you don't have a dog or don't want to get one, a barking dog alarm is a great option. It's an alarm device that imitates angry barking when it detects motion.
They Discern Scents Masked by Odors
A trained detection dog can discern the scents that are masked by multiple odors. Dogs' noses help them smell in layers, thus bypassing multiple smells. Their noses pick up specific ingredients which you would otherwise have a challenge discerning.
The reason dogs guard people is fairly simple: they see their owners as part of the pack and are naturally inclined to protect them. For toys and other items, the behavior is known as resource guarding. Like other animals, dogs developed a natural instinct to protect things they see as valuable; particularly food.
Dogs are powerful sniffers: though sensitivity varies by species, their noses can be 10,000 to 100,000 times stronger than those of humans. Law enforcement agencies around the world have long put that canine advantage to work, using “sniffer dogs” to uncover everything from explosives to illegal drugs.
It seems that dogs can be good judges of character and responsive to human emotions. One notion is that dogs can smell hormonal changes that occur when people are in different emotional states. For example, we release adrenaline when we are anxious. Scientists have proven that dogs do attend to human facial cues.
Experts who have studied dogs and their sense of smell have concluded that dogs can't necessarily smell the emotion that is fear. They can, however, detect smells and see movements and body postures that may help them sense when a person is nervous, anxious, or afraid.
Is a Dog More Protective of Female Keepers? This isn't a general rule, but some pets are more likely to exhibit protective behavior with female keepers. This is because women generally have a softer voice and are gentler whenever they care for the dog.