Last Updated on October 26, 2016
If anyone can tell you which cities are the worst for dog attacks, you’d expect it to be the Postal Service, whose mail carriers occasionally find themselves facing a snarling canine blocking the way to the mailbox.
The Postal Service has released a list of the 10 worst locations for dog attacks, based on their own letter carrier attack records. (That’s dogs attacking letter carriers, not the other way around.)
The worst city for dog bites, according to the postal service, is Houston, with 62 cases of dog attacks in 2010. Columbus, OH and San Diego tied for the number two slot, and Los Angeles ranked third.
Louisville, KY grabbed fourth place, while San Antonio and St. Louis, MO tied at fifth.
Cleveland and Phoenix tied at sixth; Minneapolis and Portland, OR tied at seventh. Denver and Philadelphia tied at eighth place.
Sacramento (ninth) and Seattle (tenth) rounded out the list.
The release comes just in time for the Postal Service to recognize National Dog Bite Prevention Week, which is May 15-21. I have no idea why this particular week became associated with this particular cause, but preventing dog bites and promoting responsible pet ownership is important no mater what time of year it is.
By the way, if you have a dog that a letter carrier feels may be aggressive and represents a danger, forget about all that “neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow”  business: the threat of a dog bite can keep your mail carrier from his appointed rounds. You may be asked to come to the Post Office and pick up your mail until the dog is better restrained.
And if a potentially dangerous dog is running loose in your neighborhood, even if it isn’t your dog, that could be enough to temporarily suspend mail service to the entire neighborhood until that threat is dealt with.
