sure. we operate by modified consensus process. one of the things that this means, is that if someone is regularly having to abstain or even block (none of the 4 of us have ever exercised a block) it means that person is out of alignment and the group as a whole needs to come together to hash it out. what, exactly, has come out of alignment and why? have your desires, goals, vision for this place or yourself changed? how? what does the group want to do about that?
i'll pick a concrete thing, though. it's summer of 2019. jenny had this dog, zippy. it was a murder machine, a carolina yellow dog. a hunting breed, literally bred to kill, very smart, very fast. she loved it to pieces. it got banished from our sister property for eating a chicken. then it attacked the chickens here. then it attacked Elliot and hurt his rear end in the process of trying to get his tail. he recovered, after a while, but he was injured. by consensus, the dog was banished from freely roaming the land so that there would be no more poultry assaults. jenny built a dog-yard in an agreed-upon spot, a big fenced in field for zippy. okay. the field was set up so that it would in fact keep the dog in, so that worked okay. a few months later, J and T are just coming home from something and zippy pours out of the car with them. i'm standing by the hot tub talking to J, when suddenly my cat Arisilde comes flying past, followed within seconds by zippy the murder dog. i fly after them, my bum knee notwithstanding. i caught the dog by the collar as her teeth were millimeters away from closing around the body of my cat. my cat was too dumb to dive through the cat-door, behind which he would have been safe. (that cat is dumb. it's not usually a real problem.) J came around the corner and took zippy from me and i got Arisilde inside, unhurt. but unhurt by a matter of SECONDS.
the group called a special meeting to decide what to do about it. i said, i can't live with an animal that will harm or kill my cats. i can't do it. if that means i have to leave SR because this place is for murder dogs now, then fine. (context: i was still married and very well knew i needed to not be and leaving SR was the primary way i was envisioning getting out of that, too, and that informed my willingness to make this level of issue over the dog. AND, i can still feel my breath come short and my heart racing when i think about that animal.) and, Jenny LOVED this dog. absolutely loved her. Tristan said, i wish i'd gone with you to the pound that day because we agreed on a small dog and instead you came back with this big problem dog. tristan didn't really like that dog either. the poultry killing was a big important issue for him; we're a poultry farm. he needed us to not have to constantly police our animals. rev likes dogs in general as little as i do, for all the same reasons, but in this conversation, he mostly mediated (he is great at that).
tristan said, are we willing to break SR apart over this. none of us were, includign me and J. but it couldn't stay as it was. so dialing back from that he asked, what are we willing to do, then. and J agreed to a) work on training the dog not to chase cats and hens and keep her rigorously under control while in this process. and then b) if that wasn't successful in a time frame we agreed on, to rehome zippy. we all agreed to that, and wrote up a contract with the timeline. so that we wouldn't all remember different things. she enrolled zippy in dog school and they did that. zippy really really really wanted to chase everything in the world and could not be taught to only chase a ball. jenny learned that she doesn't have the attention or focus to really do a great job training a dog right now while also homeschooling an elementary-age kid and co-running a farm. Jenny gathered herself together and found another home for zippy. with a family that had another carolina dog and no other pets at all. in Washington. they drove halfway here and J met them halfway, in Utah or someplace, to ensure the dog went to a beloved home. they all still text and are in contact with dog updates with each other. Jenny went to the dog rescue with Tristan a month later and adopted a mutually agreed on dog, who had mutually agreed on characteristics including a history of not chasing other animals. that's Arrow, who is actually a good dog, who we still have. (he's part pit bull and part basset hound - a pitbull looking dog on short stumpy legs with long floppy ears and woeful eyes. he is lazy and quiet and very sweet; he's scared of the cats and peacocks, he ignores the chickens, and he doesn't chase anything, even balls.)
it boils down to: situation by situation, we hash it out. that i think is a good example because it was very emotionally challenging for all of us and we were all very upset and angry. and yet we worked it out succesfully.
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i'll pick a concrete thing, though. it's summer of 2019. jenny had this dog, zippy. it was a murder machine, a carolina yellow dog. a hunting breed, literally bred to kill, very smart, very fast. she loved it to pieces. it got banished from our sister property for eating a chicken. then it attacked the chickens here. then it attacked Elliot and hurt his rear end in the process of trying to get his tail. he recovered, after a while, but he was injured. by consensus, the dog was banished from freely roaming the land so that there would be no more poultry assaults. jenny built a dog-yard in an agreed-upon spot, a big fenced in field for zippy. okay. the field was set up so that it would in fact keep the dog in, so that worked okay. a few months later, J and T are just coming home from something and zippy pours out of the car with them. i'm standing by the hot tub talking to J, when suddenly my cat Arisilde comes flying past, followed within seconds by zippy the murder dog. i fly after them, my bum knee notwithstanding. i caught the dog by the collar as her teeth were millimeters away from closing around the body of my cat. my cat was too dumb to dive through the cat-door, behind which he would have been safe. (that cat is dumb. it's not usually a real problem.) J came around the corner and took zippy from me and i got Arisilde inside, unhurt. but unhurt by a matter of SECONDS.
the group called a special meeting to decide what to do about it. i said, i can't live with an animal that will harm or kill my cats. i can't do it. if that means i have to leave SR because this place is for murder dogs now, then fine. (context: i was still married and very well knew i needed to not be and leaving SR was the primary way i was envisioning getting out of that, too, and that informed my willingness to make this level of issue over the dog. AND, i can still feel my breath come short and my heart racing when i think about that animal.) and, Jenny LOVED this dog. absolutely loved her. Tristan said, i wish i'd gone with you to the pound that day because we agreed on a small dog and instead you came back with this big problem dog. tristan didn't really like that dog either. the poultry killing was a big important issue for him; we're a poultry farm. he needed us to not have to constantly police our animals. rev likes dogs in general as little as i do, for all the same reasons, but in this conversation, he mostly mediated (he is great at that).
tristan said, are we willing to break SR apart over this. none of us were, includign me and J. but it couldn't stay as it was. so dialing back from that he asked, what are we willing to do, then. and J agreed to a) work on training the dog not to chase cats and hens and keep her rigorously under control while in this process. and then b) if that wasn't successful in a time frame we agreed on, to rehome zippy. we all agreed to that, and wrote up a contract with the timeline. so that we wouldn't all remember different things. she enrolled zippy in dog school and they did that. zippy really really really wanted to chase everything in the world and could not be taught to only chase a ball. jenny learned that she doesn't have the attention or focus to really do a great job training a dog right now while also homeschooling an elementary-age kid and co-running a farm. Jenny gathered herself together and found another home for zippy. with a family that had another carolina dog and no other pets at all. in Washington. they drove halfway here and J met them halfway, in Utah or someplace, to ensure the dog went to a beloved home. they all still text and are in contact with dog updates with each other. Jenny went to the dog rescue with Tristan a month later and adopted a mutually agreed on dog, who had mutually agreed on characteristics including a history of not chasing other animals. that's Arrow, who is actually a good dog, who we still have. (he's part pit bull and part basset hound - a pitbull looking dog on short stumpy legs with long floppy ears and woeful eyes. he is lazy and quiet and very sweet; he's scared of the cats and peacocks, he ignores the chickens, and he doesn't chase anything, even balls.)
it boils down to: situation by situation, we hash it out. that i think is a good example because it was very emotionally challenging for all of us and we were all very upset and angry. and yet we worked it out succesfully.