In the OP:
…offer some opportunities to talk about HOW the homeowner got so far behind the curve and the various steps he could have taken…
I take this as a question about a situation in which locking doors and installing motion detectors and buying a dog is too late to happen now because an intruder is standing at the foot of your bed.
Firstly, the intruder came in through a sliding glass door. The phrase “lock the sliding glass door” is an oxymoron when referring to ninety-nine percent of the sliding glass doors on the market. Even with the so-called blocking devices added.
The typical “normal” door can be opened by a determined and knowledgeable intruder. An ADT sign in the yard just causes him to believe there’s something inside worth stealing and he’ll have to disable the alarm. Only the “amateur” intruder is deterred by this. Someone who just escaped jail and on the run is seldom an “amateur”.
My car has factory installed anti-theft systems and requires a coded key to start it; and car thieves know exactly how to work around these. Alarms and locks and dogs and attack cats are no threat to professional thieves or desperadoes on the run.
I don’t lock my car because if it’s going to be broken into I’d rather it be broken into with still good windows instead of broken into and broken windows. If it’s stolen I just hope it’s found later without bent fenders and as much gas in it as when he stole it. Insurance will replace the key lock and repaint the scratches on the steering column.
In the OP case the homeowner was fortunate because the intruder was lacking both gun and brains. I doubt that the “average” home invasion would be similar; the “average” intruder would likely have both.
The only way to gain control as I see it would be to have a gun in bed with you, and not in a holster and not tucked beneath the mattress. The only way to have it instantly reached would be to keep it under the pillow; and I know some men who do just that.
As far as a “safe area” where one can sleep with unlocked doors, I don’t know of any. I do know of an entire family being slaughtered in a rural area of Georgia where it was (used to be) “safe” to have unlocked doors.
The OP homeowner got ahead of the curve by thinking and using it. The rest of us might not be so lucky, unless we have a gun under the pillow.
BTW, if you want a good “alert” dog get a poodle.