Postmen will no longer deliver the mail on foot to a residential street in Britain due to fear of being savaged by a growling dog, a postal spokesperson said on Friday.
Over the past few months, the roaming collie has terrorised postmen on Manor Crescent in Swindon, in the south of England, preventing them at times from delivering letters and parcels completely, said the spokesperson for Royal Mail.
As a result, the national mail service has made the unprecedented decision to withdraw foot deliveries for the foreseeable future.
Instead, the post will be ferried by van with one postman approaching doorsteps while another acts as a look-out.
”People tend to traditionally find the idea of a dog chasing a postman down a road amusing, and it’s not,” said the spokesperson.
Some families living in the street have also made contingency plans to collect their mail directly due to the likelihood of attack by the dog, which has been menacing the neighbourhood since last October.
Royal Mail has contacted the dog’s owner and the local dog warden to try to resolve the problem.
”We don’t think there’s anything malicious with the owner. It’s just a dog escaping and doing what dogs do and that’s protecting their territory,” said the spokesperson.
Dog bites account for about 16% of all injuries to postal staff in the area, but this case was particularly serious due to the dog’s unusually wide hunting ground, according to the Royal Mail spokesperson. — Sapa-AFP