Train the owners to control their animals if they know they might be expecting a package or they think they'll be receiving mail on a daily basis.

Just refuse to deliver mail or packages to a home where there are animals that can pose a threat to you. How much mail do they want to miss, or how many packages do they need to miss out on before they find a way to make it possible for you to deliver without endangering yourself? Make them come and pick up the packages and mail themselves until it's safe to deliver to them.

Why is it the service person's fault if the the animals are a threat?

I agree with BLK94; some common sense applies. If the owner is home, maybe try to get their attention first, so they can control the animal. If not, maybe the package is undeliverable until it's safer.

I'm not criticizing anyone; just tossing in a couple of cents.

 

I'll add my two cents here to the other side of the coin also.

First of all, I'm talking about dogs that are fenced or controlled, not the ones running loose. If a dog is running loose I think anyone has a right to defend themselves as necessary.

I live next door to my Dad. He has a Heeler/German Shepard cross named Susie. 99% of the time she is the biggest baby you'd ever see. However she is very defensive of her yard and people and puts up a very good show at being vicious when a stranger comes around. She's never bitten anyone and I don't think she would, I think it's all show, but people don't know that.

One day I heard the oil truck pull up between our houses. The oil guy was delivering oil. I knew that he'd have trouble with Susie and that no one was home, so I immediately put on my shoes and headed over there. I found the oil guy trying to work his way into the yard by poking at the dog with a leaf rake, trying to ward Susie off. Talk about stupid.

I told Susie to back off and she did immediately, and I put her in a different part of the yard behind the gate so the guy could deliver the oil. As he was working, he talked about how he dealt with dogs.

He claimed that if necessary he would hit the dog in the head with the hose nozzle, and if that didn't work he would spray oil on them. This resulted in a couple of angry calls to the oil company and that guy doesn't work there anymore. I'm fairly certain that if I had not been there, he'd have provoked the dog into biting him, and Susie is a big and strong enough dog that she'd have done a great deal of damage. She'd have probably had to have been put down because of it and I'd have probably done my best to knock the crap out of one particularly stupid oil delivery driver.

The moral of the story is, if there is a mean looking dog in a yard where you need to make a delivery, DON'T. If people don't get their deliveries, and know why, they'll control their dogs. We discussed the issue with the oil company and their drivers now know to either not deliver, or to get me to put the dog inside. They were very agreeable to this arrangement.

Also, I think the dog biscuit idea is a good one.

 

Has anybody ever used those sonic dog deterant devices? Isn't a dog wistle thje same thing?


How about one of these?
http://www.futurehorizons.net/sonic.htm

 

My girlfriend had a pit bull chase her down the road once as she was jogging, she turned around and ran toward the pit bull, it stopped in its tracks and hauled *** in the other direction.

I had another pit bull attack me as I was walking her dog one day around the block. The pit bull tried to attack my dog, and as he turned around to attack my dog I grabbed his back and threw him to the ground and pinned him down, waited until some neighbors could come over and help me with him. We seem to have a pit bull problem around here in Georgia... I should go call Michael Vick and see what he would recommend.

 

Those are probably Vicks dogs. He has spent time in Georgia I believe.

 

She's lucky that wasn't a mean one...

Tim