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California is a “ruff” place to ship the mail, in response to annual information from the U.S. Postal Service that exhibits the state leads the U.S. in canine assaults in opposition to mail carriers.
Final 12 months, there have been 675 canine bites on mail carriers in California, up from 656 in 2021 and 67% greater than Texas, which ranked No. 2 with 404 bites in 2022. New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio rounded out the highest 5 states, with 321, 313 and 311 bites in opposition to mail carriers, respectively.
Los Angeles ranked second amongst cities, up from fourth the earlier 12 months, with 48 canine assaults on mail carriers. Houston claimed the highest spot with 57 bites in 2022. 4 different California cities made the checklist: San Diego at No. 5 with 39 assaults, San Francisco tied for No. 17 with 19 assaults, and Lengthy Seashore and Stockton tied for No. 20 with 16 assaults every. The info weren’t standardized for inhabitants dimension.
In complete, greater than 5,300 USPS workers have been attacked by canines in 2022, in response to the company. The info have been launched as a part of the Postal Service’s annual Nationwide Canine Chunk Consciousness Week public service marketing campaign. This 12 months’s theme is “Even good canines have unhealthy days,” the USPS mentioned in an announcement.
“When our mail carriers are bitten, it’s normally a ‘good canine’ that had not beforehand behaved in a menacing approach,” mentioned Linda DeCarlo, USPS occupational security and well being senior director.
Mail carriers are instructed to not startle canines or assume they’re pleasant. If a canine assaults, postal employees are skilled to “stand their floor and shield their physique by inserting one thing between them and the canine — resembling a mail satchel — and to make use of canine repellent, if mandatory,” the USPS mentioned. Letter carriers even have instruments to flag canines alongside their routes, together with an alert function on their scanners and warning playing cards that may be inserted with sorted mail.
Pet house owners might help shield mail carriers by protecting canines inside, on a leash or behind a fence when mail-time rolls round, the USPS mentioned.
“When letter carriers ship mail in our communities, canines that aren’t secured or leashed can change into a nemesis and unpredictable and assault,” mentioned Leeann Theriault, USPS worker security and well being consciousness supervisor.
Threatening canines have in some instances precipitated disruptions to mail service. In September, postal employees stopped making their common deliveries to a neighborhood in Cleveland, the town with the fourth-most canine bites final 12 months, after an aggressive canine attacked a mail service.
In 2020, mail supply was suspended at Mar Vista Gardens, a public housing advanced with greater than 1,800 tenants within the Los Angeles neighborhood of Del Rey, partially over a threatening canine.
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