Guard dogs your eyes, your ears, your friends

Having a guard dog is a good option to keep you safe in your home, but a dog cannot be a replacement for a security system. You have more responsibility for your own safety than your pet does.

- PETER VAN NOORD

Nothing can ever prepare you for it: waking up in the pitch-dark night with the realisation that there are people in your house. Strangers.

In that moment, even through the fog of a deep sleep, you know the whispers and the swinging beam of a torch in the next room don’t signal anything good. You jump out of bed – relieved that you had the foresight to put on pyjamas – assess the situation double-quick, and make half a dozen decisions in a split second: Is this a dream? What can I use as a weapon to defend myself? Your eyes scan through the dark. Not the hand-carved knobkierie a friend gave you as a present. Not the leaden statue of the Virgin Mary that you bought in Croatia. You see three figures…What if they have a knife? No, they’re too small, children even.

You surprise them as they’re hunched over your desk with your laptops, cameras and other essential tools on it with a polite, “So, what’s going on here?”

And then you’re caught off-guard by the wild chase that ensues. Shouting from the homeowners, the burglars panting. Seconds of complete chaos that feel like a lifetime, even centuries. They aim for the window that they had entered through, but you manage to catch one of them by the ankles. More shouting and yelling and swearing, but you hold on for all you’re worth. Tonight, you are personally handing this hooligan over to the police. But you don’t hear the repeated, “Get him with the knife!” and you don’t see the blood. You’re in pit-bull mode. And then, suddenly, you start feeling dizzy and your hands let go. They’re gone. When you turn around, you see the bloodbath in front of you. And you’re the one who’s wounded.