Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Dogs in Community

[Naomi Anderegg (naomi_anderegg]

Hi Angela & everyone,

Never mind the dogs--what about having clear and consistent expectations for 
people?

I think that part of it goes back to the "parenting in cohousing" conversation 
from a week or two ago. Different people have different expectations for their 
kids. Different people have different expectations for their dogs. If you have 
either, you want to make sure that the rules of the community are something 
that you can live with before you jump in. But, I can see how this could be a 
potential deal-breaker as far as deciding whether or not to live in a 
particular community. My cats, for example, go outside unleashed. (They like 
going outside. It makes them happy. Judge all you want. I don't care. My cats 
are happy cats.) Unless I had great reason (like an awesome job) to move to 
part of the country with cat-killing coyotes, or perhaps another environment 
inhospitable to cats, I don't see this changing. At the same time, even though 
I really do think that cats should be able to go outside, I'm not going to 
insist that my neighbor let her cats go
 outside. Her cats. Her business. I would be willing to compromise by, say, 
putting a bell on a cat that's killing song birds, if a neighbor requested that 
I do so. (This isn't something I do now or plan on doing anytime soon--so it 
really would be a change in behavior.)

But you, as a community member, have to take this stuff with a grain of salt. 
All your neighbors aren't going to be *perfect* parents or have the same 
expectations for their kids as you have for yours. Nor are they going to be 
*perfect* pet-owners. Nor are they going to keep their expectations (of anyone) 
completely consistent.

So you have policies to make sure that everyone can kind of get along and to 
communicate the expectations of the group. That's why they're there--to create 
that "clear & consistent expectations" atmosphere for us! 

Naomi
Birmingham
not-yet-cohouser

--- On Fri, 6/24/11, Angela Alston <angela [at] dallascohousing.org> wrote
Sadly, owners who fail to train their dogs properly give dogs a bad rap.

Your dog wants to please you: if you are clear and consistent about  
how s/he can please you, everyone is happy.