For posties, online shopping has an unpleasant bite

CHISELLED in granite on a post office in Manhattan is the United States Postal Service's unofficial motto: 'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.' Dogs sometimes do, though. The number of canine attacks on postal workers has climbed from 5,581 in 2013 to 6,755 in 2016. Most attacks occur in cities, where postal workers often walk to make deliveries. Los Angeles has the worst record, with 80 dog attacks last year, followed by Houston with 62.Thanks to e-mail, online banking and the like, the postal service delivers many fewer letters than it used to. The volume of first-class mail it handles has dropped from 91bn items in 2008 to 61bn in 2016. But internet shopping has led to a jump in parcel deliveries'up from 3.3bn to 5.2bn in the same period. Posties with parcels often knock on doors, which gives the dogs an opportunity.Following a rise in canine attacks in 2015, the post office launched an app on postal workers' hand-held scanners that warns of dogs at certain houses. Owners of repeat offenders are told to pick up post at a nearby post office. If a loose dog plagues a...Continue reading
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