A walk round the garden

I love sitting out in the garden and still haven't got used to the fact that the weather is pretty predictable here, unlike in the UK, but there are some hazards.  Recently we've had an army of black hairy caterpillars descend upon us, or rather they're ascending every surface, inside and out.  I leaned against the house wall before realising I should've checked for beasties and now have an itchy caterpillar shaped mark on my arm and a black smear on the outside wall.  I'm hoping they'll all turn into beautiful butterflies, not boring white ones so they are being allowed a lot of leeway.

Last Sunday I opened the curtains to discover one of our bathroom soakaways had collapsed in the night. Thankfully it's not the one that drains the toilet.

Then I turned over an empty upside down jug to discover that it wasn't empty after all.

Finally, does anyone have any tips for getting rid of a barking dog?  Our neighbours' dog, a nice enough animal, has decided that right outside our gate is the place to be throughout the night.  He's done it several times now and my patience is wearing a little thin as last night he started at 1:20am, went on for a long time, had a rest as he seemed to be losing his voice (hooray!), then started up again at 5am.  I went out to let him know he wasn't appreciated and he glared at me in a most aggrieved manner as he slunk off.  I need to put him off before Luach decides that barking though the night is what big boys do and joins in himself.