Not wishing to take anything away from the fact that burglars are absolute fucking scum - but you got a scumbag who is obviously good with dogs and likes them/has some limits where pets are concerned.
Much better than dog thieves/those who would hurt them. And he deserves praise for being so friendly, they stayed downstairs and possibly getting fingerprints over his collar and the treat packet
*
I had a Staffie/Greyhound/something big and brindled cross. He looked like a extra from a Zombie movie/genetically modified monster dog. He still cried helplessly when the cat decided it wanted to eat his breakfast and could have eaten the stairgate I used to keep him away from the front door scaring all tradesmen.
Never heard anything from him other than Staffie like wibbles, whines and sighs until one morning, I opened the door to a couple of men who were fairly obviously on the lookout for easy targets. Mutt was sleeping on the settee at the time.
As I was mentally calculating whether I needed to kick off/could move quickly enough to get the door shut before they rushed it (it was a proper alarm bells ringing thing, especially the movements of the second bloke), I heard something like an angry dragon quietly rumbling at my shoulder level. Mutt had silently got off the settee, crossed laminated flooring, climbed up the stairgate to get that bit higher and kept completely out of sight, so that he could growl at a height (and pitch) that made him appear to be the size of a grizzly bear.
My callers heard it too. They left very quickly.
As I turned from shutting the door to phone the police, I came face to face with mutt, who promptly licked my face and fell over the stairgate. He later hurled himself at the feet of the visiting Police officers, landing on his back with his belly uppermost. The one who did most of the talking said 'THIS scared them off? Did he try to sit on them?'