a dog in conjunction with a gun is as good of a security system as you can get ........ as far as not being home a dog and something like adt is as good as you can get ..... dogs are without question deterrents , and great alarms , folks looking to rob houses avoid them for a few reasons , they're noisey and they may bite .......nobody in their right mind going in a backyard or a house with a strange big dog threatening them .......... I lived in a pretty crime ridden neighborhood in Cleveland , i'm sure it's always top 10 in the country , most likely top 5 most violent crime , had two neos , lived on an alley behind an industrial parkway , everybody got robbed in the 10yrs I lived their , my next door neighbor while he was home sleeping , I was never robbed , and I left my back door open for the dogs ...... I had a big tree in the middle of the back yard , it was pitch black back there in the summer , you could only hear those neos at night , you couldn't see them . it was a good effect , those dogs loved everybody but it didn't sound like it ......... as far as keeping dogs that will naturally attack strangers , I've known folks inbreed ,linebreed on dogs that hated people , got pups hated people , I've been shown that that is a working temperament , some of those dogs achieved the highest protection titles there are , and they weren't mals , DS , or GSD , they were American bulldogs ...... they might have "working" tempers , but not in the right hands they were nothing but dangerous .....I've seen what happens to most of those dogs , it's pretty sad , it's a pet peeve of mine , had a friend teach his akita to bite people for real ,I knew that dog since he was a pup , I couldn't take him , I had kids , the dog ended up shot like so many I know of , wish I could have taken him to this day just remembering him .... it boggles my mind that folks think there is a place for those dogs ,there may be , but those places are few and far between ......... seen a secret service dog (mal) , that was actually used to protect the president of the United States , take a boot to the face and ran away ........ those hateful AB's I don't think would run off if you shot them .....
dogs are also great at livestock , predator control , they tend to be stupid bold with animals