I have a 4YO Golden. For some stupid reason, he has decided the back yard is his and the house is mine. So, he guards his back yard vociferously, but rarely makes a sound in the house.
In fact, when something wakes him up suddenly, he’s mostly a big bundle of fear in the house.
So, I’m not sure what he would do if someone tried to break in at 3am. But I sleep light, my Maverick 88 with an 18 1/2 inch barrel one step and a short reach away. To protect myself, my wife, my daughter, I would take a shot without regard to the dog. (And I’m very attached to that dog.)
Priorities.
A very nice Golden today at the hunting retriever club training day refused to re-enter the water to make her second retrieve despite all the cajoling, pleading, and tossing pebbles near the floating duck that we could do.
On the other hand, my Labs have horrible line manners and this same Golden is always picture perfect.
I'm with you, by the way. I love my dogs, but if my family's in danger and they get in the line of fire, I'm sorry but that's too bad. That's why I've trained them to whoa.