Dante Rowley watched a stranger move through his San Diego home on security cameras and saw the family dog do the last thing anyone would expect. Nash, the couple’s golden retriever, kept walking up to the intruder with toys in his mouth and a wagging tail while police worked to find the man inside the house.
The break-in happened while Rowley and Stephanie Calderon were out of town during one of the most brutal heat waves of the year. Rowley and Calderon were traveling back from Chicago when they watched almost the entire episode in real time, a remote front-row seat to a burglary that turned oddly calm inside the house.
A man had gotten in through an open upstairs window after first hopping the fence and then bringing over a ladder. Once inside, he did not immediately flee when police arrived outside. Instead, he stayed in the home for more than an hour, and at one point appeared to take a nap and eat food from the fridge before officers arrested him about an hour later.
That was the part that made the security footage so hard to process. The couple’s two dogs did not act like guard dogs, and one went out through a doggy door. Nash, in particular, behaved as if a visitor had arrived for playtime. Rowley said his dog usually jumps and barks at new people, but once they get inside, he thinks it is time to play. Rowley said, “Our dog tried to play with him,” and described Nash as “super friendly.”
Police circled the home, called for the man to come out, and sent a drone inside to search for him. While officers were trying to clear the house, Rowley said he and Calderon kept asking themselves what they were seeing. They were worried about the dog more than anything else, and later said they were relieved Nash came through the ordeal safely.
Nothing was stolen except eaten snacks, and some outdoor pots broke during the burglar’s attempted escape. There was no damage to the home beyond the broken pots. The episode stands out less for what was taken than for what was not: a home burglary in which the family dog met the intruder with toys instead of teeth, turning a break-in into a bizarre standoff that ended only after police searched the house and made the arrest.
