The Herald Sun reports that Tim Holding, who heads the Department of Justice in Victoria, Australia, wants insurance companies to offer premium discounts to homeowners who have dogs, referring to them as "four-legged burglar alarms".

As it stands right now, most insurers advise their policy holders that dogs are one of the best deterrents against burglary. However, no insurance company offers discounts for owning a dog.

The same article goes on to list all sorts of evidence on why dogs make such superior theft deterrents, even citing a study that asked several hard-core burglars on what worked best as a deterrent, in which dogs were named at the top.

I can attest to this personally. Mia, our beagle, is not shy about howling when she hears something moving near the house. Often it's just a cat moving about, or the branches of bougainvilleas scraping the windows. And you don't need a big dog. All you need is a yapper, just enough noise to cause a burglar to pick a different house.

As for what breed of dog makes the best theft deterrent, I don't know. I can't say that beagles are ideal, because I'm sure there are beagles who don't care to bark at anything. If you have some thoughts, please post a comment.