When the dog is home alone

How do you guys deal with the alarm when you go out and leave the dog at home. I'm not talking about motion sensors or false alarms, I'm talking about the poor dog being locked in her crate when an alarm occurs and having to deal with all that noise.
 
I'm thinking about setting up a silent alarm, any other ideas?
 
Mike.

How many alarms are you experiencing?

You could put the dog in an area not in direct proximity to the sounder.

The sounder is there to present a deterrent to the burglar to get out.
It should only sound for a short period and reset.

Maybe just don't use an inside sounder if that will annoy your dog. Instead maybe have a solenoid which will open the create if the alarm goes off. If its a big dog, that might be a better deterrent than a sounder. 

Desert_AIP said:

How many alarms are you experiencing?

You could put the dog in an area not in direct proximity to the sounder.

The sounder is there to present a deterrent to the burglar to get out.
It should only sound for a short period and reset.

Click to expand...

 
I haven't had a single alarm yet (aside from me tripping it) but I don't want to do that to her. You would understand if you knew this dog. She's a border collie terrier mix and extremely high energy and I imagine that she would try to escape the crate and hurt herself if the alarm started blaring. She is a rescue and we are her third home in the first ten months of her life so she is a work in progress. She is also young and can't be trusted to be loose in the house alone yet so we crate her when we go out. I suppose I could turn the volume down on the alarm but it seems to me that  the louder the noise the better the deterrent. I have the Elk alarm at full volume and was initially planning on adding a screecher.
 
Mike.

ano said:

Maybe just don't use an inside sounder if that will annoy your dog. Instead maybe have a solenoid which will open the create if the alarm goes off. If its a big dog, that might be a better deterrent than a sounder. 

Click to expand...

 
I didn't have the dog when I installed the system and my plan was to make so much noise inside the house that it was uncomfortable to stay inside but not so noisy as to annoy the neighbors. I want them to hear it but not have it ruin their day so I currently have no outside siren or speaker. I'm not so sure that they would call the police if they heard an alarm anyways.
 
The idea to open the crate door is interesting but she is only about 30 pounds and more of a lover than a fighter. I think that a low volume or silent alarm is probably the only option but maybe someone could have an clever idea.
 
Mike.

My sister/brother-in-law's most current dog was adopted (rescued from a shelter). 
 
Not sure on the age and they have had her now for about 3 years.
 
Her main bedroom is a cage with her blanket in an attached 2ndary family room.  They never shut the cage door.  She does alternate between sleeping in her cage or the guest bedroom where she just uses the bed.  The guest bedroom is away from the main part of the house and much more quiet than the 2ndary family room that is never used.  She has two different coloured eyes.  I have never seen this before in a dog.
 
She is a big dog and very friendly as they had a break in and the break in people just feed her snacks while they stole a bunch of stuff in the house. 

pete_c said:

My sister/brother-in-law's most current dog was adopted (rescued from a shelter). 
 
Not sure on the age and they have had her now for about 3 years.
 
Her main bedroom is a cage with her blanket in an attached 2ndary family room.  They never shut the cage door.  She does alternate between sleeping in her cage or the guest bedroom where she just uses the bed.  The guest bedroom is away from the main part of the house and much more quiet than the 2ndary family room that is never used.  She has two different coloured eyes.  I have never seen this before in a dog.
 
She is a big dog and very friendly as they had a break in and the break in people just feed her snacks while they stole a bunch of stuff in the house. 

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Pete
 
We're like that here too. We put a bed sheet over the guest bed for out last dog and that was her bedroom unless we had a stay-over guest and the dog would get upset when anyone slept in her bed! This dog is allowed on the bed and furniture but has some bad habits and has to be watched. Our last dog behaved almost human-like but this new one is all animal and I worry how she would react to the alarm. I may just put her in the crate and set the thing off to see what happens.
 
Mike.

Maybe limit the time to under a minute for the siren?  If someone is deliberately in the house after that time, any extra siren noise after that is probably worthless anyway.

BraveSirRobbin said:

Maybe limit the time to under a minute for the siren?  If someone is deliberately in the house after that time, any extra siren noise after that is probably worthless anyway.

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I like that idea, is that done under cutoff timers in RP?

I'm not sure as I haven't messed with an Elk in a while.  Maybe Globals, one of those tabs?

We think the dog must be familiar with the alarm and they will be used too the sounds, so they will not get puzzled.  Not to worry.

homevisionsolutions said:

We think the dog must be familiar with the alarm and they will be used too the sounds, so they will not get puzzled.  Not to worry.

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Do you have a dog or have you ever had a dog?  Dogs do not respond favorably to loud noises.
 
Mike.

Maybe just a silent alarm (strobe maybe too?) for the time bean or maybe low volume  / different room until the dog acclimates to the environment (house).
 
Last dog we had here was in the 1990's and was well acclimated to the sounds (including chirps and alarm sounder).  She didn't sleep in a cage and I recall building a doggy door and training her to utilize it.  That did take a bit of time.
 
In the 1980's another dog would jog with me and if I missed a day or was late would do it's stuff in my gym shoes.  She did for a bit go to barking at the parrot who had free rein of the house as the cage door was always open.  One day the parrot pounced on her, bit the dog's snout, blood everywhere, dog went to a corner whimpering for an hour or so then the dog never barked at the bird again.  (parrot is large and dog was medium sized at the time). 
 
The parrot is now around 40 years old and slowing down a bit.  Yesterday she hounded me for a treat and parrot didn't realize I put the treat inside her cage until I made motions for a second time.
 
After a bit of time thinking the dog will get used to your home and the normal sounds and you can test some piezo sounder a bit at a time or not at all. 
 
I mentioned my sister-in-law's dog.  She is pretty much now an oversized lap dog.  You can just tell her no these days and she listens.
 
The only sounds that seem to have an effect on her are relating to greeting whomever is in the house. 

mikefamig said:

Do you have a dog or have you ever had a dog?  Dogs do not respond favorably to loud noises.
 
Mike.

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I have to agree with Mike on this one!

We have a ShihTzu and have never had an issue with our dog responding unfavorably when our alarm has gone off, although she is very scared of fireworks and thunder. Granted, we've always been home when it's happened and only done so for probably less than 30s. She's more concerned with barking at the kids walking by on the sidewalk in front of our house.
 
My wife actually set ours off about 2 weeks ago while I was at work. I got the message that the alarm had gone off and at the same time received a picture of her opening the front door from my CCTV system. I waited a few minutes before I called her because I knew what had happened and didn't want her to have to deal with me on the phone and her trying to get everything turned off at the same time. She had armed the alarm while she and our son was taking a nap, got up before he did and decided she was going to take the trash out and forgot the alarm was armed. We have (2) KP speakers as well as the standard speaker installed, and my son didn't even wake up.