Death on the Hilltop

Death on the Hilltop

No, no one has died…yet. Last night I got a strange email from someone I didn’t know. It began, “I haven’t met you yet, but I have been living in the neighborhood since 2013.” It was from a woman who claimed to be in our neighborhood and who was forwarding an email that had been sent a few weeks ago by her husband. It went on to say, “My husband realized last night that he hasn’t sent the below email to you yet. My husband and I appreciation your attention on this matter.” We are all recipients of scam emails these days and we all tend to look for tells that we are dealing with a scam. I’m sure you can “appreciation” why I might have thought this to be another email scam with a local bent.

The forwarded email supposedly from the woman’s husband described an incident (actually described in the title of the email as “Incident on August 7, 2024”). Rather than try to characterize the email content second-hand, here is the transcript: “Last Wednesday (8/7/2024), my kids had near death experience caused by very aggressive unleashed dog (large Doberman) in the neighborhood.   My daughter was walking alone, and the unleashed dog started stalking her and barking at her very aggressively. The dog owner was not around, and she felt threatened and terrified. My son was walking in the street near the same house at a different time and the dog sprinted towards him unleashed barking and baring its teeth at him. My son was very shocked because the owner was present at the scene this time, but she did nothing to restrain the dog’s aggressive behavior towards a pedestrian walking on a public road.  This is unacceptable.” I have added the bonding for emphasis on the inflammatory wording.

The email went on to say that they had and would provide the address of the culprit if requested. It threatened retaliatory action by saying, “If similar incident occurs again, it will be reported it to the proper authorities to prevent potential physical and emotional injury or even death.” It was entirely unclear to me what exactly I was being asked to do. Clearly this was a call to action because they wanted my “attention on this matter”. My first inclination was to email back and ask what exactly they were asking of me. I joke that I am the Mayor of this hilltop, but I am not. Then, when I read the email to Kim, she said I shouldn’t respond at all since this was clearly some sort of scam. When I called my neighbor Faraj to ask if he had received a similar email, he said he had and that he too thought it was a scam and he deleted it. So, Kim’s reaction was not so far off-base. But then it occurred to me to look at my hilltop map to see if the name of the sender matched one of our neighbors. Indeed it did. It was one of the neighbors who had never responded to my invitation earlier this summer about the neighborhood party. This was a neighbor who didn’t care to be neighborly, but now wanted the help of the neighborhood.

That realization caused me to try calling these neighbors. The phone list I have is, unfortunately, several years out of date and the number was out of service. So, I emailed back and asked for the specificity of the offending homeowner with the dog. You see, our neighbors just south of us happen to have a Doberman, so I suspected that it might be them. I also decided to call those neighbors and read them the email since I thought they should know what might be coming their way. I got hold of them (the wife of the couple) who was quite distraught by the email and immediately started to suggest that they wanted to be good neighbors and would need to modify the way in which they handled their dog. I was surprised by the show of contrition since it was still unclear to me that this was a real email from a real neighbor and that it necessarily involved this particular neighbor and their dog.

Then I got a reply to my inquiry email and the woman thanked me for responding so quickly, sent me a Google Maps aerial view of my neighbor’s house and said that they were afraid to walk in the neighborhood until this issue was resolved. My response to that was to identify the owners of the property next to me and to send her their phone number. I told her that I had spoken to the owner and that she felt very bad about what had occurred and was already taking corrective action. Furthermore, I said we knew the dog and that while she could seem fierce, we had no reason to believe she was dangerous. Nonetheless, I encouraged her to reach out directly to my neighbor, who I assured her would be both contrite and cooperative. I then forwarded that entire communication chain to my neighbor on the theory that open communications are the best way to approach any incidents like this.

I may or may not ever hear anything about what happens next. The offended parties may or may not contact my neighbor. It seems to me that if I had had a similar incident and it troubled me as much as it apparently did them, I would have just knocked on their door and discussed it with them. I believe that communications and the lack thereof is at the heart of most altercations in life. To paraphrase Steve Martin in My Blue Heaven, it’s not communicating I believe in, it’s over-communicating. It always amazes me when people are shy or concerned about “confrontation”. I find that defusing situations like this is the only way to go. In fact, knowing what I now know, I think both parties should be reaching out to one another seeking resolution. One may be inclined against confrontation and the other may be sheepish in light of their offense, but both would feel better immediately if things were aired rather than being allowed to fester in the dark.

I am a person who completely understands how intimidating a large dog, especially a purported “attack dog” like a Doberman, can seem. If I owned such a dog I would be extra careful to not let it be intimidating to my neighbors. But then I also would not take the approach of circulating an email to the neighborhood that went so far as to suggest a near-death experience when what I should be doing is talking directly to the offending party. I will be interested to see how this plays out. I guess we don’t have enough excitement on this hilltop. It does make me realize how lucky I am that our Buddy, at 5.5 pounds, would be too small to scare anyone to death. The truth is that Buddy is more menacing than Summa (the Doberman), but I doubt anyone would mistake a growl from him as a serious threat. For now, I just hope I have helped calm rather than enflame our little hilltop.