Got my claim in before mango's insurance expired, all paid out, but no way I'm paying more to insure her than both cars so now we'll just have to keep savings.
On to an entirely different issue, barking. Just before I left for Riga our neighbour came to complain that the dogs apparently have been barking constantly whenever we're out for the last 6 months. We had no idea, and she'd never mentioned it, but seemed rather annoyed this time! Obviously now we know we need to fix it, wish she'd said something 6 months ago though as now it's learned behaviour.
I separated them immediately, Ollie upstairs and Mango down whenever left alone, and can see it's always Mango. If Ollie is with her he'll bark too, but if on their own it's just her. A camera shows that she does indeed do it a lot, I set Alexa while away to play irritating jazz music at her whenever she barks but after getting home I decided I'd bark too if I had that playing and it probably just wound the neighbours up more! This has all been done remote, my brother was here to look after them while we were away, and although he took some time off work for them they were still alone 3 days while we were away.
I'm now looking for other ways to calm her, any ideas? It's definitely a worry thing, she's a keen herder and I think she's acutely aware she's lost her sheep so to speak. She gets upset if we try to split up on walks for example, we should all be together. To that end I think we need some way to make her feel people are still there, so maybe a chat show or something that constantly talks? There's also those anti bark collars which I don't really want to use but I know it must be annoying for the neighbours, just wish they'd said something last year!
So, any ideas?
