Everyone knows a dog is man’s best friend.
Kathy and Bob Welty recently found that out firsthand when a burglar entered their home through a rear bedroom window.
“He broke in through an unlocked gate through the back yard,” Kathy Welty says.
The burglar then broke through the window, ready to steal valuables.
However, the thief was scared away from entering the rest of the home by the family’s 8-year-old golden retriever, Sunny. Welty believes he closed the bedroom door to keep Sunny out of the room, and made off with only a minimal amount of jewelry.
If not for Sunny’s barking, things could have been much worse.
“She really saved the day,” Welty says of the dog they have owned for the last four years. “Normally, she’s not a mean dog … but when she’s scared, she can really bark a lot.”
Welty believes she saw the burglar as he fled from the home. She noticed the man’s vehicle, and did not recognize him. About $800 worth of jewelry was taken during the break-in.
“I saw the guy actually as I was returning home; [he was] in a van exiting the alley,” Welty says. “I was thinking at the time, ‘That guy does not belong in our alley.’ Once I got home and went down the hall, and saw the bedroom and what happened, I knew he did it.”
After calling 911, Welty says police informed her they were already looking for the man in the area after he had been reported as breaking into a neighbor’s garage.
The Weltys have lived in their home for eight years and have never been burglarized before. Kathy believes the thief probably looked through garage door windows and saw that no cars were inside, making the home an easy target. The couple have since added a lock to the back gate and painted over the windows on the garage door.
Police are continuing to investigate the case, but an arrest has not been made. The suspect in the case is described as a black man in his early 20s with no facial hair. His vehicle is described as a 1997 Ford Aerostar van, white with a red pin stripe on the side.
To prevent these types of crimes, Dallas Police Sgt. Keitric Jones suggests, “Perhaps look into getting a monitored alarm system, close all blinds when leaving the residence so that the criminals cannot see what you have on your property, and become involved in a neighborhood watch program.”
