I also wouldn't necessarily count out your every day friendly family dog from being a good deterrent. I am likely literally alive today because of plain old, large, family dogs that I grew up with. I had a stalker when I was 17 and he tried to break into the house one day while my mom was out getting groceries. I woke up to hear *both* my dogs going ballistic, which caught me by surprise. My catahoula/lab was a sweetheart, but protective. If I was unsure of someone, he'd hackle and growl until we got away from whomever was making me nervous, but otherwise was loving to every adult he ever encountered and could *not* get enough love from kids. It was the second dog that was the surprise. That was Shelby, our golden retriever/border collie mix. 75lbs of jet black fur with white toes. Everything about her looked like a pure golden except the color. The gentlest and most unassuming dog to ever exist. Mom and I used to joke that she'd help any burglars tote stuff away. But no, when this guy invaded her territory, she was going to do her damndest to take him out. I could hear her great roaring bark (both dogs were inside), while Aussie was leaping at the sliding glass door trying to bite this guy in the face.
Stalker couldn't find a way in that wouldn't include meeting a combined 125lbs of angry teeth and that was sufficient to make him leave.
I think part of why that worked well was we also didn't yell at them ever for barking. If they alarm barked, we'd try to figure out why and they'd hush themselves once we had a look-see.
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