WHEN MEDIATION COMES HOME TO ROOST!

One community dispute resolution center once mediated a neighbor vs. neighbor dispute that was lengthy and heated. According to what I was told, one neighbor had a rooster. And as roosters do, it crowed every morning with the rising sun and then some ten or so times throughout the day.  The neighbor didn’t appreciate be awakened at daybreak by the rooster nor hearing the rooster crow during the day. The owner of the rooster did first check with city regulations and found that keeping one rooster as a pet was legal in their city, but several birds would have been in violation.

Regardless, the neighbors got into heated verbal disputes over the pet, which eventually got to physical threats towards each other, as well as the rooster. They did eventually agree to go to community mediation, which ended up lasting for hours.

The complaining neighbor explained the problem with emotional force. The responding neighbor replied that it was legal to have a rooster in their city, that it was a companion pet and that crowing is part of its natural behavior.

They could see no way to resolve the issue because of how they viewed the conflict. One was convinced they were completely entitled to have a crowing rooster; the other that the rooster needed to go. They saw no way to compromise.

In frustration, the mediator asked if the parties had investigated ways to stop the rooster from crowing. The complaining neighbor was first to answer with “Kill it!” That, of course, resulted in more dysfunctional argument.

With growing frustration the mediator suggested they do a computer search together in the mediation room. They agreed and found there is such a thing as a rooster collar which limits the airflow to the rooster’s voice box and reduces the volume of the crowing sound. It was described as painless and easily tolerated by roosters.

The complaining neighbor said, “Do you want to try it?” The rooster’s owner said, “Sure, and for a couple of bucks the conflict was over.

I use this example not to show the variety of things people get into conflict over, but as an example that mediators believe that, “it’s not always easy, but it’s usually possible,” for parties to find a mutual resolution.