From yap to growl, device dogs intruders

An Israeli firm has designed a security system to ensure jail breakers or intruders find a guard dog's bark can indeed be worse than its bite.


Harnessing technology that interprets barking -- to see if an animal is responding to a threat instead of just routinely woofing -- the company aims to replace or supplement expensive electronic surveillance systems.


"There is currently very little utilization of the watchdog's early warning capabilities," says privately owned manufacturer Bio-Sense Technologies, based in the Israeli town of Petah Tikva, on its Web site.


The company -- which says dogs have better night vision than humans and a vastly superior sense of smell and hearing -- used computers to analyze 350 barks and found dogs of all breeds and sizes barked the same alarm when they sensed a threat.

If the dogs sense an intruder or attempted security breach, dozens of sensors around the facility pick up their "alarm bark" and alert the human operators in the control room.


Dubbed "Doguard," the Dog Bio Security system is in place in high-security Eshel Prison as well as Israeli military bases, water installations, farms, ranches, garages and in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Eshel Prison installed the system last year to supplement its existing network of electric fences and human guards, prison officer Bazov Moris told Reuters.


Now Rex, a brown American Staffordshire Terrier, Emmy, a white Caanan, and 27 other dogs guarding the prison are tracked by sensors to alert guards to any attempted breakout at the jail, which houses about 3,000 prisoners including Israelis and Palestinians.

There have been no escape attempts since the system was installed, but Moris is convinced it works. He said prisoners at other facilities had been able to escape "because dogs barked but no alert was sent to the guards."

During a demonstration an alarm wailed as Rex and Emmy raced, growling and snarling, alongside one of the facility's metal fences, which a man in a brown uniform was trying to scale from the other side.

Officers in a small basement office nearby watched on a surveillance video and spoke into their walkie-talkies as a wall of computer screens flashed in red: "Dog alarm in Sector 12."


Seconds later, several prison guards, wielding clubs, raced to the scene and tackled the man to the ground.