[Craig T]

Unfortunately, I have a very real experience…and the reason why I will always have a large dog and a nightstand firearm.

In 1988, fresh out of the USAF, and with a 6 month old daughter, my wife and I bought a home in Chino, CA. It was a good neighborhood of newer track house, made up mostly of young families. I was not a gun collector, but my grandfather had left me a couple guns when he died, including a S&W 629 .44 mag. I kept the 44 under some sweatshirts on the top closet shelf.

At 3am I woke to a loud bang at the back door. Two seconds later my normally friendly golden retriever went nuts. That's when I grabbed the gun and walked toward the back door with the gun pointed in front of me. There was a huge screwdriver stuck into the door jam where he tried to pry the back door open and the hinges were broken from the jam. When he couldn't pry the door open he kicked it with what the police said was a size 14 work boot. My dog obviously heard the bang and went after him. He knock the trash bins over scrambling over the gate at the side yard.

The policeman doing the report told me to "give that dog a steak because he may have saved my life". I told him the robber should give him a steak because I was standing in the hallway with a loaded .44 by the time he kicked the door free. I would have won that battle.

A person who burgles your house when your not home is one thing. When that psycho kicked that door in he knew it would wake us up and he must have been prepared to deal with that.

Every house since has had a burglar alarm, a gun, and a guard dog.