In this episode, we dive into a topic that hasn't been covered before, but one that is of utmost importance to both the Postal Service and our valued customers—Dog Bite Awareness. Join us as we discuss the dangers that our beloved canine friends can pose to mail carriers and the safety protocols and training programs implemented by the Postal Service.
This week on Mailin' It, we discuss the dangers our beloved canine friends can pose to mail carriers. This episode is particularly exciting as we explore Dog Bite Awareness from various perspectives with Linda DeCarlo, Senior Director of Occupational Safety and Health at the Postal Service, Swain Lowe, a dedicated Letter Carrier from Manassas, VA, and Daniel Ettinger, an experienced Animal Control Officer and Trainer joining us from Colorado. While most mail carriers and dogs coexist harmoniously, there are times when tensions arise. Join us we'll shed light on the importance of dog bite prevention and ensure the safety of our dedicated mail carriers.
Karla Kirby:
Hello and welcome to Mailin’ It!, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm Karla Kirby. Today's episode takes on a topic we haven't covered before. Although it's extremely important both to the Postal Service and to our customers, I'm talking about the dangers that our canine friends can pose to mail carriers. Listen, most of the time, mail carriers and dogs coexist in harmony, but other times, not so much. Last year alone, more than 5,300 postal employees were attacked by dogs while delivering mail. Another 5,400 employees were attacked in 2021. Over the years, the Postal Service has worked hard to understand how and why these attacks happen, and to develop safety training for our mail carriers. We also host National Dog Bite Awareness Week every year to educate our customers on the role they play in preventing these attacks. I'm really excited about this episode because we get to cover this topic from a number of different angles. Our guests include Linda DeCarlo, Senior Director, Occupational Safety and Health at the Postal Service. Swain Lowe, a letter carrier from Manassas, Virginia, and Daniel Ettinger, an animal control officer and trainer who's joining us from Colorado. Swain. Daniel, welcome to Mailin’ It. And Linda, welcome back.
Linda DeCarlo:
Hey, thank you. Thank you.
Karla Kirby:
Wow. I think this is the first time we've had three guests on an episode. I've got questions for you all, but I'd like to start with Linda. You were on Mailin’ It about a year ago for our episode on corporate safety. For the people who didn't hear that episode, tell us a little bit about what you do as Senior Director of Occupational Safety and Health here at the Postal Service.
Linda DeCarlo:
Sure, Karla. My job really is what I would consider one of the best jobs in the Postal Service. We are responsible for all of the safety for our employees, all of the workers' compensation claims to make sure that if anybody is hurt, they get all the benefits they're entitled to and medical services. So, in my position as the Senior Director of Occupational Safety and Health, we are involved in every aspect from our buildings, to our vehicles, to our people, to our processes.
Karla Kirby:
So this time around, we're talking specifically about dog bite awareness. Obviously, postal employees, especially those who deliver mail, are going to encounter dogs while out on their routes. Linda, can you tell us a little bit about the Postal Services Dog Bite Awareness Campaign and how it protects our postal employees?
Linda DeCarlo:
Well, sure. Karla, and I think we have to go back to the beginning. National Dog Bite Awareness campaigns really began back in the 1980s, and they occurred as a result of two very horrific incidents. We had two employees in the California area that were severely injured. One actually died as a result of that dog attack. So as a result, we decided that it was really important to bring awareness, not just to our employees, but to our customers. You know, every year, as you said, 5,400 employees are attacked or bitten or have some other incident involving a dog, and it's totally preventable. And National Dog Bite Awareness Week allows us to really provide tips to our employees on how to protect themselves and to our customers on what they can do to protect themselves and our employees as we're out delivering the mail.
Karla Kirby:
That is absolutely good news. I think this is a good opportunity for us to bring Swain into the conversation, considering he had to put that training to use a few years ago while out on his route. First off, how long have you been with the Postal Service?
Swain Lowe:
I have been with the USPS for now seven years.
Karla Kirby:
Oh, that's quite a time. Okay. So I understand you had a close encounter with one of our four-legged customers a little while back. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Swain Lowe:
It was a summertime in June. I believe it was two, three years ago, probably 12:01 PM The sun was high, the birds were chirping. Had a great day going so far. But there is one walking route we have. It's a long walking route. As I was going around I noticed a dog at a house also behind the fence barking at me. But being behind the fence, there's no danger because you don't think a dog will just run through the fence. So I deliver, go to the house, deliver the mail, and I walk away from the house. As I do that, the dog goes from one side of the house to the other side of the house while still fenced in and with great leg strength - I'm talking about the amazing leg strength - jumps over at least a four-foot fence and comes after me. We do have training, like Linda says, against dogs or defensive training. Usually put something in front of you between you and the dog. It will always deter the dog away from you. Cause dogs don't think - they just wanna bite the first thing they see.
Karla Kirby:
So let me, let me say, first of all, seeing the dog jump the fence just had to be…
Swain Lowe:
Amazing. I would give that.
Karla Kirby:
And so, and I'm thinking scary, right?
Swain Lowe:
At first, no, because I was so still amazed. Cause I, you have to see the, you have to see the jump
Karla Kirby:
So it sounds like based on the training you received, it kicked in. And so end result was what?
Swain Lowe:
What - the dog did bite the bag, not me. And as I kept pulling the bag, it let go. As I stepped backwards and stepped back further enough left, I believe the territory that he's guarding, and he literally just like at the end of the day, clocked out and jumped back over the fence, and it was like a normal day for him.
Karla Kirby:
So would you say, I guess at the end of the day, your training paid off?
Swain Lowe:
Yes. Yes. it really did.
Linda DeCarlo:
Well, I think it's really important that, you know, the one of the comments that Swain made was that, you know, at first you're just sort of shocked. You're stunned. And it really does matter that that training has been ingrained in you. Your instinct was to use something to block that dog, give him something else to be interested in. You know, we also have other tools available. You know, if that had not worked, Swain would know that he could then go to his dog spray. He knew not to run. He knew not to antagonize the dog any further. So it's those kind of things that, through the repetition of training really start to help.
Karla Kirby:
And how often do employees receive this training?
Linda DeCarlo:
We start from the very first day. Then an employee is brought on board. As part of initial orientation, we're talking about how to protect yourself from dogs in, in addition to all the other hazards that our employees may see out on the day-to-day job performance. But then we do periodic. Every office that has a dog bite does a standup talk to make sure that that awareness is available for all the rest of the employees. We do these annual national kickoffs that involves letters to our customers, flyers, brochures. So we constantly reinforce that training every year at the minimum. But it really is a topic that needs to not just be a week. You know, we need to have national awareness of dog bite prevention every day throughout the year.
Karla Kirby:
So, Linda, you mentioned that there is training that's provided to the employees. Can you provide some additional detail on what that entails?
Linda DeCarlo:
Absolutely. As I stated we start training and we continue training over and over again. But that very first initial training involves the use of the satchel. The satchel is designed not just to carry mail, but to also provide a barrier between the employee and the animal. We also teach them about the pepper spray that we have them carry. It's a dog repellent spray. It is a standard pepper spray. It's been evaluated by the Humane Society and found to be non-harmful for the dog. But what it does is allow those precious moments that the dog is kind of stunned and confused to get our employees to a place of safety where they're no longer being bit. So in addition to that specific physical training, we also talk about situational awareness, not wearing headphones. As you're out delivering the mail, you need to be able to hear a dog approaching. You need to know what's going on in your neighborhood. You need to see whether fences are open. So there's a lot of that sort of situational awareness training that we provide on and on and on.
Karla Kirby:
All right. So Daniel, I've got some questions for you now, but first I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about your work as an animal control officer and what that entails.
Daniel Ettinger:
Yeah. So animal control, you know, is something that is needed by the community to keep people and their animals safe. And I got started 13 years ago doing some volunteer work at an animal shelter, and then doing ride-alongs with animal control officers who are out here in the community trying to protect, you know, everyone that they can and all the animals that they can. There's a lot of trainings involved with animal control work through national certifications and or your state certification. So animal control officers receive training on how to make sure to keep people safe from being bitten by dogs or how to even investigate crimes against animals as well. And there's, there's also a lot of other training available too, online. So officers can keep up with their continuing education credits and things of that nature.
Karla Kirby:
And so I understand that you receive training, but do you also do training? Do you train other animal control officers?
Daniel Ettinger:
I do. And in fact, I've trained in Colorado, there's a law called the Dog Protection Act. So I've trained at the local police departments for several years on how to interact safely with dogs. So they can end up dealing with them in a manner that is not involving firearms so they can use other tools if needed, to protect themselves. And the main thing really is understanding the behavior and body language of those dogs.
Karla Kirby:
So Daniel, assuming you're out on a route and you see a dog in a yard, can you just tell by looking whether or not you're gonna have a problem making a delivery?
Daniel Ettinger:
I mean, you know, I can, but I've been working with dogs for a very long time. And so what you bring up is really important. So dogs have, I kind of, I say three different communication styles, and they can exhibit all, they can exhibit none or one, we have verbal, non-verbal, and physical, right? So a dog will typically start with a nonverbal clue and say like, what does that look like? So a dog that may be aggressive or a threat display may be leaning forward, right? It could be a lot of its body weight is kind of on its front shoulders, maybe its head is a little bit lower, staring directly at you. That could be a nonverbal clue on that. This animal prop has a propensity to attack if, if you don't continue to listen to the other clues, some of those other clues.
Now we're gonna listen to the, the verbal, right? So there could be some barking or growling, like a low, something like that, right? Where the dog is trying to tell you, “Hey, back away from my space,” right? Dogs are territorial. Now that doesn't mean specifically that they understand that their property line stops at the, at the mailbox or stops at the sidewalk, right? They may be territorial for a number of feet around their own property. So you're gonna hear them barking, low growling, showing their teeth is another nonverbal cue. We talk about hackles. I don't know if any has heard that before, where the, the hackles are raised up on the back of the dog, kind of looks like they have a mohawk. The scientific term for that is piloerection. And through any type of arousal, a dog can show that. So just seeing the hackles up alone does not necessarily mean that that dog is aggressive, but in conjunction with the body language or the body weight being forward, the dog growling, and then having the hackles up could be a great sign from a distance that I should not go into this yard.
Karla Kirby:
So can you talk about the physical then cues?
Daniel Ettinger:
Absolutely. So typically dogs don't really wanna bite people. You know we see that most of the bites that occur are really low level bites. And there's a scale that you can look into it's called the Dr. Ian Dunbar Bite Scale. And a bite that you typically see the most common bites are like your level threes, and then the scale goes from one to six. We don't have time to go into that right now, but the level three is like your most common bite. And when a physical altercation happens between you and a dog, it's typically come up, bite you once, and then back away. We call that a warning bite, like, “Hey, you're not listening to the other clues that we have put out here. So now I have to hitch this physical clue that I don't want you in my space.” So typically what you're going to see is a quick bite to like, maybe the leg or the arm, and then let go, and hopefully that the whoever's bit recognizes - hey, I need to stop and back up.
Karla Kirby:
So in, in Swain's example, or his encounter was an example, it was an actual recollection of what happened to him. He didn't mention the breed of dog. Would you say that the breed of dog comes into play or makes a difference when we talk about animal control and these type of attacks?
Daniel Ettinger:
That's a great question. I think overall the size and temperament or dog of dog is gonna be the most important, right? Breed can have some sort of maybe predisposed, but stereotype or history, if you will. Some breeds are bred for certain things, like a cattle dog is gonna be better at livestock than maybe a golden retriever is, right? Just instinctually. However, when it comes to protecting yourself and dealing with animals in the community, especially dogs ultimately the size is gonna be the biggest component, right? So a chihuahua versus a Great Dane the factors are gonna be different. So in that aspect, I think their therefore breed will be different, but breed's not gonna ultimately dictate behavior.
Karla Kirby:
So, I shouldn't be afraid of the giant poodle.
Daniel Ettinger:
You know, I mean, you could though, right? Like you shouldn't be, but you could be like poodles could because it's a larger big, it's a larger dog, right? It could, the, the propensity of getting injured is gonna be a lot worse from a larger dog than it is a small dog.
Linda DeCarlo:
Yeah. And I think that's a really good point, Daniel. I think, you know, one of the things that we always say at, at the Postal Service, that if it's got teeth it can bite. It's just a matter of the size, impacting the potential of the severity of the injury that could be sustained. You know, when we looking at all the dogs, they're protecting their territory, they're doing their jobs, and we're intruding into it. So at that point, any size dog, any breed dog is going to have a reaction to somebody entering their territory.
Karla Kirby:
So that being said, Daniel, what would you say a mail carrier would need to do to determine whether or not it's safe to make a delivery?
Daniel Ettinger:
Well, I think one of the most important things, is just your overall awareness when you're out on your route and knowing where the dogs are. I mean, I think if it's your first time on a route, right? Figuring out kind of the, the hotspots. Cuz there might be areas, you know, I know when I worked in Denver, it was one of the higher places of bites, two letter carriers in the county and, you know, specifically the Westwood neighborhood which we would often go to. And so a lot of the problems there were no fences or broken fences. So that's something to keep an eye on, right? Making sure that when you're on your route you're making enough noise to give the dog kind of a heads up. You never wanna sneak up on a dog cuz that's gonna startle it even more. But then just having that situational awareness, making sure you see - is there a dog in this yard before you enter? And there's things that you can look for, like if it's a grassy front yard, there might be a path in the yard that the dog create by running back and forth. There may be bowls, dishes feces, those type of things that, that can kind of alert you to there may be a dog on the property.
Swain Lowe:
Can I also tag on that? I do agree you say situation awareness. Keep that up also. Customers themselves can be an X-Factor. One day they'll have their door locked, the next day they have their door locked. Then the third day their door is wide open. You may never see a dog before or you never knew they had a dog, and outta nowhere a small dog or a big dog from the basement or whatever will come and attack you. I do agree with situational awareness, but day by day things do change and it's always something new.
Karla Kirby:
So with that, I, I think you bring up a great point. So you can't necessarily just be assuming that the house that you go to every day, a dog is gonna be there or not gonna be there. So it could surprise you. Even if you're on a regular route. Not to mention if you're on a new route. So I think, yeah, situational, situational awareness does come into play. But Swain let's get back to your story and what happened after the attack, okay. Were there certain procedures that you had to follow?
Swain Lowe:
In case of a dog bite, you are supposed to inform your management team or supervisor to let 'em know what happened. It is supposed to be written up for that reason. In this case I wasn't bitten - just a bag. I didn't really follow up to, I told my supervisor, but I didn't really tell 'em, “Hey, I wanna go press a issue,” with this because I wasn't harmed. My person wasn't harmed. So I'm okay.
Karla Kirby:
So I get that you weren't actually bitten, but your, your, your bag was damaged. So did you or does your supervisor come out and speak with the homeowner about the dog?
Swain Lowe:
Normally going back to the other carriers have been bit, yes. Then you have to write up statement and they do go back to the owner's address to see, get their statement as well, to get the story together, not just go by one side, have to get the whole thing together, and then they do a process, legal process if they wanna go forward with that.
Linda DeCarlo:
The whole process, starting from when Swain would've, let's assume Swain had gotten bit, he'd notify his supervisor. The supervisor goes directly to the customer because there's a lot of things that we have to establish for Swain's protection and for other people's protection. So we need to inquire about the status of rabies shots and any other incidences that may have involved that dog. And that's where law enforcement and people like Daniel become involved at a local level. There are instances where the dogs need to be, you know, sent away or there are other activities as we progress that, you know, your dog may be have been a hazard to Swain, but he's also a hazard to the neighborhood. And that impacts delivery because we do take the safety of our employees extremely seriously. And if your dog has bitten somebody, we're gonna not deliver mail to your house until that dog is under control. And we know for a fact that you've got them restrained and not in a path of causing that kind of harm again. But let's say your dog is one of those dogs that likes to jump that four foot fence and wander the neighborhood and is just biting people willy-nilly across blocks and blocks, you could actually impact the delivery of mail to your neighbors because we're not going to let our people go into a situation that we know has the potential in resulting in a dog bite.
Karla Kirby:
So given all of that, what advice does the Postal Service provide to dog owners to help lower the chances that their dog might attack a mail carrier?
Linda DeCarlo:
The guidance that we give to homeowners is really about responsible pet ownership. And it's in reference to carriers or anybody else that might be coming to their house, there are some simple steps that they can take to help protect those folks entering their property. One is put the dog in another room. You know, when you're answering your front door, make sure that that dog has no way to approach that front door because we've seen dogs jump through screen doors, storm doors, and the like. We also suggest that if they're out in the yard, they're restrained in some way, whether it be on a long tether or have a fence that's sufficient enough to prevent the bites. One of the other tips that we always give as well is don't let your kids take the mail directly from a carrier. You know, the dogs are doing their job, they're protecting their family, and sometimes they view that as a threat. This is a stranger that's approaching their child. And so we, we, it's those kind of simple tips about being a responsible pet owner that will protect both the customer and anybody approaching their homes.
Karla Kirby:
So at the end of the day, keep your dog restrained if you want to get the mail. You mentioned that if a dog is loose or has the propensity to get loose, it could actually impact the entire community's mail.
Linda DeCarlo:
Yes, absolutely. And, and nobody wants to be that person that makes all of your neighbors have to get in the car every day to drive down to a local post office to pick up their mail.
Karla Kirby:
So Linda, you mentioned the Dog Bite Awareness Week. So where would a customer get information?
Linda DeCarlo:
You know, we really hit all of the major media that we can when we are announcing National Dog Bite Awareness Week. So a as an example, this week we'll be holding a national level press conference out in Chicago. From there, the expectation is that every post office and every plant is holding a local event that they're opening up for the media. Some of the other things that we do during National Dog Bite Awareness Week is send out postcards to customers, especially in those areas where we've seen an increase in dog incidents. So we try to hit the newspapers, the radio stations, we do national press, and then we hold local events. Most of the local events are designed to reinforce with our employees. You know, it's a really good opportunity to, to show some demonstrations, to have people like Daniel come out onto site and show dog training techniques to our employees so that they're really aware of what sources and resources are available to them.
Karla Kirby:
So I wanna thank everybody for joining us. I want to give an opportunity for Swain, Daniel and also Linda to give any closing remarks that you wanna share with our listeners. Swain, we'll start with you.
Swain Lowe:
I hope what I said was informative. For the next carrier please use the defensive mechanism they teach you in the meetings. It does work. I'm contested that it does work. Put a bag, put something in front of it, and also keep your eyes and ears open on things like the Mr. Daniel said situational awareness.
Karla Kirby:
And your encounter also provided some education for customers too. So not just carriers you encounter. Definitely let customers know what could happen in those situations. Daniel, any closing remarks you have for us?
Daniel Ettinger:
Yeah, I would just encourage any letter carrier that is out there and wants to reach out to their animal control officer, I highly encourage it. I'm sure most animal control officers would really appreciate that relationship and it would help if that animal control officer knows of any aggressive dogs in the area, they could hopefully alert the letter carriers to that and just help keep everyone safer. So I just encourage you to go out, stop by your local animal shelter or wherever animal control is located, introduce yourself and try to form a relationship there.
Karla Kirby:
Thanks Daniel. And of course Linda.
Linda DeCarlo:
Well, I guess in closing, I would just summarize sort of what we've all been talking about today. It starts with responsible pet ownership. Then it moves to our employees being trained and aware of their situation and know how to respond. We are also using technology to help support both those customers and our employees. We have a mobile delivery device that allows carriers like Swain to notate on their device where dogs reside. So if somebody is filling in for Swain, they get an alert about 25 feet before they approach that house. It just says, Hey, fluffy lives here. She likes to hide under the car. It's not saying you've got a vicious dog, it's just saying, Hey, be aware. We also have informed delivery, which allows our customers to know when they should be expecting a package to be delivered, which would tell them that maybe my mail's not gonna be at the box at the curb, but somebody's gonna physically come up onto my property to my porch. That's an opportunity to put the dog in another room when you know that package is being delivered. So by blending all those three things together, we can ensure that that 5,400 employee impact reduces year after year after year.
Karla Kirby:
Well, thank you Linda, and I think that's a lot of great information and thank you Swain, and thank you Daniel.
Karla Kirby:
Well, that brings us to this episode's “Did You Know.” For my interesting fact this episode, I wanna talk about robots and how the Postal Service is using them alongside employees to improve efficiency. One of the best examples is at our very large material distribution center in Topeka, Kansas. That's where we store tens of thousands of repair parts, supplies, stamps, and other things for our 21 network distribution centers. Given the size of the operation, you can probably guess that filling NDC orders is a lot of work. Enter the robots. Did you know that in Topeka last year we installed our first parcel robotic sortation system or PRSS? The system includes a big robotic arm, a conveyor, and more than a dozen autonomous mobile robots. Here's how it works. Employees upload network distribution center orders to the system's computer. Then based on what's in the order, forklift drivers bring pallets of items over to the robot's big metal arm, which sorts the items and puts them on the conveyor for scanning and labeling. The mobile robots take the items from the conveyor, they get the zip code and location information from the systems computer that they use and drop them right into containers, which are put on trucks bound for different distribution centers. Our plants have been using robots for years, but this takes things to a whole new level. It's a sign of things to come and a big part of our 10 year Delivering for America Plan to modernize the Postal Service. And that wraps up this edition of “Did You Know.”
Karla Kirby:
That's all for this episode of Mailing It. Don't forget to subscribe to mailing it wherever you get your podcast to make sure you don't miss the next episode. And follow along on Instagram @USPostal Service, Twitter @USPS, and on Facebook.