Creeper Burglaries Increase

How to protect your home from burglaries

Whatever the time of year, your home is always at risk of being burgled. In this article, we discuss ways to protect your home including tips that are relevant to summer and winter.

Keep away wondering eyes

Windows are great for letting in natural light and adding warmth to a home during the daytime. Unfortunately, they also let in wondering eyes. Anyone looking to find the best property to break into will easily be lured to your home if they can see valuables they can easily grab.

Removing valuables such as laptops, phones and jewellery from easy access windows and out of view is one way to remove the incentive for a thief to break in, but in most cases, it’s very difficult to hide everything from sight.

Closing curtains, especially in the winter months when it gets dark early, is a great way to stop thieves from surveying what you have on offer. If they really want to find out what you have inside, they will need to make an effort to see through any gaps in the curtains. For most thieves, it’s not worth the effort.

In the summer and on sunny days, using blinds might be a more practical alternative, especially if your property is near a road. Whilst they don’t block out prying thieves, they still act as a deterrent while allowing daylight into your home.

Winter tips

During the winter, thieves have one thing that plays to their advantage. They are less likely to be seen in the dark! Having lights that are on a sensor can act as a deterrent as well as CCTV cameras that are designed to pick up good images during times of low light.

Throughout the year, it’s also important to make sure that all windows and doors are fully locked, and keys are kept out of sight. Rear doors, for example, that have glass panes in them might make it easy for an intruder to see that the key is in the door, inside the lock.

Another, and even better, way to protect your home during the winter is to have a protection dog that can detect and scare off a burglar. At K9 Protection, we provide fully trained family protection German Shepherd dogs that not only have a great sense of smell and hearing but are highly trained to give you and your family protection when you need it most. They can also see much better in the dark than a burglar!

Avoiding burglaries in the summer

It’s a sad fact that whilst most of us are enjoying the warmer weather, we tend to feel safer and let our guard down. The sun might be shining, it’s warmer, and we all try to take advantage by heading outdoors to the park or into our garden, but that’s exactly when a burglar might unexpectedly steal from you.

Unfortunately, it's easy to forget that an open window, while we head out for a walk or at night when it’s warm, can be an easy point of entry for a would-be intruder. Open windows allow intruders to quickly view the room and scope out what they can quickly steal in a very short period of time.

Windows and the law of attraction

Any criminal looking for properties that might be an easy target are good at spotting open windows. Just passing by, it’s easy to identify if a window is open and if it’s big enough to enter and escape out of. An open window grabs the attention of a thief like a magnet to an iron sheet, but this shouldn’t stop us from enjoying our home, and the fresh air and sunshine during the better months of the year.

Limitations of security technology

Technology for home security can be great, and whether or not you have a house alarm, the mere sight of an alarm box at the front of a property or of CCTV cameras will help to distract a burglar, but these have limitations.

It’s very difficult, for example, to cover every angle of an entrance gate or window, door and entry point with CCTV surveillance - especially upstairs windows that might still be accessible for the so-called ‘cat burglar’. At K9 Protector, we believe there is only one true way to protect your home...

Cats are terrified of dogs*…

The term ‘cat burglar’ isn’t used widely anymore, but it’s origins come from a well-known burglar in London in the early 1900s who had incredible climbing skills and was able to break into buildings easily and steal things without being caught.

Whilst the original cat burglar is long gone, a great way to scare off anyone thinking of climbing in through windows, or over boundary walls and fences, is with a well-trained elite protection dog. From cat burglars to aggressive intruders or well-organised criminals, the best way to protect your home is by having a protection dog that has the understanding and training to protect you, your family and your valuables.

* All our protection dogs are highly trained to live with your other pets should you have any, for example cats, horses, llamas and of course other dogs.

Why a protection dog?

While there are many pitfalls to alarm systems and CCTV, a protection dog has various benefits over them all. Their physical presence, bark and bite is the first line of defence. Seeing a fully grown protection dog is a larger perceived threat than being caught on camera or having the deafening sound of an alarm go off.

Even if a burglar decides to attempt breaking in, a protection dog from K9 Protector is trained to protect and either hold or drive off the intruder before anything is broken or stolen. Compare this to just having CCTV, where a burglar can conceal their face and avoid being identified by any camera footage that’s recorded.

Finally, in the rare instance where you come face to face with the intruder, a fully trained protection dog knows the steps to take to protect you, starting by taking a stand against the intruder - and finishing, as a last resort, by becoming physical with the intruder should they get violent or refuse to leave.

Ultimate protection, whatever the circumstances

There are many ways to protect your home which we have covered here - from CCTV and alarm systems to making sure doors are locked and curtains are closed, but we believe there is only one way to properly protect your property and loved ones.

Having a protection dog is the ultimate level of protection!

If you would like to find out more about how protection dogs from K9 Protector can help protect your home and family, give us a call. We would be happy to understand your circumstances and see how we can help.  Get in touch today