It Takes a Village . . . or It Should Take a Village

It’s been eight months now that the hounds across the road have been howling and barking and crying day and night, first in the horse trailer where they were born, then in the kennels where they’ve grown into full sized dogs. They’re owned by a thirty-something born and bred in the village who played with my son Max when he was three years old. A week ago, I confronted him, for the second time, that these hounds that he will sell to bear hunters in the fall were driving me and everyone else in the village crazy and we couldn’t take it anymore. About 30 minutes later he said, “OK, I’m taking them to Córdova. This conversation is over.”

How we got to this victorious moment reveals much about village life that dispels any romantic notion one might have of solidarity and community spirit—on both sides of the disagreement. The young man, whose grandfather was once the unofficial mayordomo of the village, able to navigate disputes and render solutions based on what was most beneficial to the community, thought he could do whatever he wanted to do in his own best interest despite its terrible impact on his neighbors. In turn, his neighbors let him get away with it for eight months because they were too wimpy for any kind of confrontation or too afraid of retribution. Yes, retribution. What form that retribution might take I don’t know, but the fact that they feared it is completely demoralizing.

Maybe they’re thinking of the mom of the hound owner and the daughter of the benevolent mayordomo. She hasn’t spoken to me since her dad died 12 years ago, until she came out and yelled at me while I was in conversation with her son that this was my entire fault because I’m the one complaining. Of course, she hasn’t spoken to just about everyone else in the village for almost that long. Who knows why, other than the just plain fact that she doesn’t like any body.

As for solidarity in the community, after my first request of the young man to move the dogs failed, several of us decided to start a petition, or “formal letter,” asking the hound owner to move the dogs up behind his house, off the road, where any activity set them off on an hour’s long howl. We already knew, after consulting county officials, that the owner was in violation of the dog control ordinance against incessant barking, and that he’d neglected to get the required permit to commercially raise hounds. We didn’t mention that in the letter, we just asked him to be a good neighbor and move the dogs. Contacting the county would be the fall back.

Then the village’s spinelessness emerged. After passing the letter around, some started questioning the efficacy of a petition, others said they wouldn’t sign, and others hemmed and hawed about not wanting to make an enemy of the young man. When the petition author (I edited it) wrote me to say she was reconsidering our action, I’d had enough. The next morning I found my neighbor out on his tractor and convened our meeting.

This isn’t the first time people in the village have demonstrated their deep-seated fear of confrontation. After the unofficial mayordomo of the village died, the dark side took control of the acequias and most everyone quit going to the meetings rather than challenge their governance. We muddle along, whining and moaning over decisions made without our input and without our endorsement. So the whining and moaning over the hounds shouldn’t have surprised me. I had my minor victory, so far without retribution, but it’s not much consolation for the lack of the proverbial “it takes a village.”