My best advice to this traumatized family is to get dogs and don't crate them or anything but let them stay with you and yours while in the home. Get a dog door and let them run out and investigate if they hear something. Their barking will run most people off. Since you want a dog door, you don't want the biggest dogs there are, or a person would be able to get in the dog door. Get medium dogs and a medium dog door. Even tiny dogs make plenty of noise and will alert you if something is going on. The protection of dogs is not that the dogs should be trained to attack but that due to their superior senses of smell and hearing, they will detect an intruder sooner than you will, and since they have a natural instinct to protect their owners and territory, they will cause a big ruccus if anything is going down. There is no need to have a "guard-trained" dog. Dogs are naturally good watchdogs. Just learn to pay attention when the dog pricks its ears or sniffs around a door, and they will be good protection. It's true there will be some false alarms because the dogs think it's just as important to go ballistic over a cat or squirrel as an intruder human, but if you pay attention, there is a difference in the way they bark at another animal and how they bark at a human. I saw dogs in the opening photos on Dr. Phil, so I have to assume they were contained some way, if that was their dogs. Let them accept you as their pack, and they will give you a lot of peace of mind and make it much easier to sleep. I recommend letting them sleep right in the room with you.
And someone else mentioned that comment about the neighbor who was startled when her neighbor walked in her back door. I agree with the writer -- what on earth are these people doing leaving doors or windows open at all, much less when they've been through this? I just can't imagine doing that. My sister does sometimes so the cats can go in and out. I think it's insane.
I know security systems are generally a good thing, but since police rarely respond anyway and criminals know it, they certainly aren't failsafe and haven't been much of a deterrent lately. For those of you who can't afford a security system or whose police won't respond to it, here's a couple of cheap "home remedies" I have used. Go to a hardware store, feed store, or craft store and buy big cowbells and clear heavy-duty fishing line. Tie the bell onto the middle of the line (or wherever you want it to hang) and string it across different places on your property where someone might enter. Try to conceal the bell at the edge of a bush (get green ones) or have it dangling inconspicuously, and at night, it is all invisible. If anyone walks through the fishing line, the bell will ring loudly. I put one across my entire back yard just inside the fence line, and then I put one to the side of the house so that if they tried to go in the bushes and get to my bedroom windows, I would hear it clearly - plus my dogs would hear it. I also tie a cowbell to the inside knob of doors in the house that go to the outside.
Also, if you live in a house where windows don't lock properly, I have two suggestions. If the windows have at least a couple of inch sill, you can place small bells or even small kitchen pots and pans up on top and if someone opens them, there will be a huge clatter. Also, at the hardware or lumber store, you can buy very inexpesively, just a dollar or two, wooden dowels and cut them to fit in either the window groove, if it is a horizontally sliding window, or to stand up vertically at the side of the window in the side groove if the window opens up like most do. Just measure the groove or slot where the dowel needs to fit (preferably you want it to not be visible once in place), and then go to the store and get a 1/2" or whatever diameter it called for dowel. Then you can easily cut it to fit snugly into position. The large hardware superstores will even cut them for you. Of course, most thieves will simply break a window anyway, but this suggestion is for when you are at home and want plenty of warning and time to react.
I have found that outside flood lights are very comforting as well. Let me say one more thing. For years, I was afraid to sleep with the lights off but too ashamed by my cowardice to sleep all night with the lights on. Then I met a guy in a popular rock band on business who told me he left every light in the house on at night and had a gun as well. You know, sometimes those guys have fan stalkers, so it wasn't irrational. Anyway, I just finally, in my 30s, gave myself permission to not feel bad about just leaving lights on inside and out, and it really helped a lot. I also like to leave a TV going (with the sound down) so that if anyone could see in, they might think I was awake and alert and think twice. Leave them on and turned up loud when you are gone during the day. That's when most break-ins happen. Between lights, the watchful dogs, and a few extra booby-traps, I've slept pretty well lately.
Best wishes for this brave family. You did what you had to do, and it worked. You are survivors, and you will prevail again should lightning strike twice. You will be ready.
On a quiet night in mid-May in beautiful Orange County, California, Greg and Estela Becker were viciously attacked by a man with a hatchet as they slept in their bed. Despite sustaining head and neck wounds from their attacker, they were able to push him out of the room, and Greg ran for help. Their attacker escaped, and police are still working to locate him. In the meantime, an entire community struggles to find peace in what once was a safe neighborhood. Greg and Estela's twin 9-year-old daughters saw their parents covered in blood, adding to the trauma of this event. Their next-door neighbors, Anne-Marie and Billy Linas, were shocked by what they saw when Greg ran to their house for help. Dr. Phil meets with this community to discuss how they can move forward and feel secure again. Talk about the show here.
