A single loud day is an event; a month of drilling is an education, and what it teaches is up to you. Generalisation happens when a dog stops distinguishing the drilling from everything that resembles it, so she begins flinching at doors, dropped pans, and traffic sounds in places that used to feel safe. Your plan has two halves: make drilling itself as dull and well-paid as possible, and protect the ordinariness of everything else.
Localise the Noise in Place and Time
Set up her main rest area on the side of the house furthest from the neighbour's work, with her bed, water, and the steady background sound of a radio to narrow the gap between quiet and a drill starting up. Ask the neighbour, politely and early, which hours the loudest work will run and roughly for how long. Most building noise falls into predictable working patterns, and knowing them lets you walk her, feed main meals, and play in the quiet windows, so drilling becomes the thing that happens while she rests in her room, not the soundtrack to her whole day.
During drilling periods, give her an absorbing job at the start of the noise, not after she is already worked up: a stuffed food toy, a long-lasting chew if she settles with one, or treats scattered in a snuffle mat or rolled towel. The pairing you are building is drilling starts, good things arrive, nothing bad follows. Let her choose to move further away if she wants to; a dog who can retreat to a hallway or garden corner and still cope is learning control, not avoidance.
Keep the Rest of Life Deliberately Normal
The commonest mistake is tiptoeing: the whole household whispering, curtains drawn all day, walks shortened, visitors banned. That teaches the dog that the world has changed, which is the first step toward wider anxiety. Outside drilling hours, run the house at normal volume, play her usual games, invite her usual people, and take her usual routes. If you practise any sound work, keep it tiny and successful: recordings of drilling played far below the volume that worries her, for seconds at a time, always followed by food, and stop for the day at any sign of tension.
Watch for the specific signs that fear is spreading rather than shrinking: reacting to ordinary household bangs she previously ignored, startling on walks at sounds that are not drilling, refusing to enter the room nearest the work even on quiet days, or general changes such as eating less and sleeping badly. Keep a brief daily note of what she coped with and what she reacted to, because a trend over a month is almost impossible to judge from memory.
Give Her Relief Without Making Home the Problem
A day or two a week at a calm friend's house or on longer outings during the loudest phase is sensible relief, but balance it: she also needs plenty of relaxed time at home during quiet hours, eating, playing, and sleeping as normal, so home does not become a place she only experiences under drilling. When the work finishes, keep the rest room and its good associations in place rather than dismantling everything at once, and let her rediscover the formerly noisy side of the house at her own pace with food games.
Act Early If It Spreads
If her reactions broaden to everyday sounds, persist on quiet days, or escalate to panic, do not wait out the month and hope. Talk to your vet, who can rule out pain or ear problems that make noise hurt more and discuss what support is appropriate, and involve a qualified behaviourist while the habit is still new and narrow. Noise fear is far easier to treat in its first weeks than after a season of rehearsal.
A month is too long to run on memory and goodwill, so share the load formally: KinsLe's Care Teams lets family members log her daily reactions, take assigned turns at quiet-window walks and drilling-period checks, and see each task's timestamp, which keeps the plan consistent from the first drill to the last.