The cliché that dogs and postal workers are sworn enemies has been proven by USPS data showing dog attacks on its employees have reached a seven-year high, with the Midwest leading the way.
Last year more than 6,000 dog attacks on mail carriers were reported to the Postal Service, the USPS announced last month, ahead of its National Dog Bite Awareness Campaign.
The rate of dog attacks hasn’t been this high since 2017, NBC News reported, citing USPS data. Attacks have increased 5 percent since 2023 and 15 percent from 2022.
In 2024, there were an average of about five dog attacks per 100,000 households in the Midwest. The states with the highest rate of dog attacks were Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Ohio.
There are bound to be clashes between postal workers and pets, with 49 million American households owning dogs, according to Census Bureau data from 2021. There are more than 326,000 mail carriers in the U.S., according to 2022 Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
In 2022, a Florida postal worker Pamela Jane Rock, 61, died after being attacked by five dogs, according to local officials.
"One neighbor brought his firearm along and fired several shots in the air in an attempt to disrupt the attack," Joseph Wells with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said at the time, according to NBC News.
But Wells said that tactic was “unsuccessful,” and Rock ended up dying at a hospital a day later.
On Monday, a 48-year-old mail carrier in Connecticut was hospitalized after being attacked by a dog, the Hartford Courant reported, citing local police.
Middletown Police Chief Erik Costa said the postal worker was bitten on his left thigh, left wrist, right forearm, lower abdomen and the back of his head.
USPS spokesperson David Coleman called the rise in dog attacks a “real problem,” in a statement to NBC News.
“Dogs are animals, they act instinctively and can bite for any number of reasons. All it takes is just one wrong interaction/movement for our carriers to be injured,” he said.
Coleman advised dog owners to be responsible with their pets: “Teach your dog appropriate behavior and commands and don’t allow a dog to roam freely.”
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