The mailman left a Dog Warning Card in my mailbox:
My address; German Shepherd
This can't be from my regular mailman; he's known Joey since we adopted him 4 1/2 years ago.
Joey has never been outside when our mail and packages have been delivered. He does bark at the window when he sees the mailman.
The strange part is, we brought in our mail this past Wednesday; we were away until yesterday, so when the mailman delivered this, Joey wasn't even around!
Never seen one of these cards, and it's very upsetting.
Sometimes the mail carriers change routes or move into a different position and the new one may be more wary of your dog. We ran into this too, not a note, but a conversation in which the carrier said he has seen dogs come through or break windows, one of those dogs bled out from the injuries he sustained.
We decided moving our mailbox out to the street along with securing the barker in another room while we were away was the best option. The barking is a self reinforcing behavior and can escalate, best to squash it.
When we got our puppy last year I introduced him to all the mail carriers, regular and relief. Our regular carrier knows us and our dogs and reminded me he is scared of German Shepherds. I said, Ok, but he still needs to know who you are. The relief carrier was terrified of him at 4 months when he was still a floppy baby. Because I knew she would be impossible to work with, I decided when she is on, the dog doesn't go near the door or the front yard, ever. We have never had a complaint. Is it possible to keep the dog in another room and away from the front window? That can be scary.
Some mail people just hate dogs. I had trouble with this at another house. The fill in mail people were never a problem and my dogs were in the house secured down the basement when the mail was delivered. She just had some serious dog (and work) problems.
Your mail person can cause you a lot of problems, so be careful and document everything. My mail person went to the extent of shutting off my mail, not delivering a notice, and I was left wondering where was my mail and why I had shut off notices plastered on my front door for utilities. (Hard to take care of things when you work steady daylight the same as the post office and utility companies and you can't make personal phone calls from work.) Anyhow, it turns out that somebody told the mail person that nobody lives at my address anymore so she took it upon herself to shut me off, which is not legal without notification from me, at least that was her story. Another time I was replacing my wooden porch with concrete and placed the mailbox on a board for a couple of days so she would not even have to come in the yard, just reach over the fence, and she refused to deliver my mail stating that is was unsafe???? And I also had my check books stolen, and used, from my mailbox, from what I believe was an effort by her to force my hand to rent a mailbox because her fear of dogs locked in a cellar was that over the top. She also destroyed and trashed much of my mail, and I know that I did not receive all of my mail. My mail was shut off many a time through the years that I lived there, all by the one mail person complaining about my dogs, and each and every time it was restored because my dogs were secured in the cellar during the day. Even the postmaster at the post office suggested I get a PO box with them as they were tired of the nonsense as well, but I refused to pay for something because of the mail person's dog phobia.
Mine ended with reporting her up the ladder and having them investigate but stopped when she became injured on the job (slip and fall) and being put on permanent disability at the same time. Hmmm!
The orange card is for a service disruption due to aggressive dog, unsafe conditions/ice ect... I got one years ago for putting up a fence. I fought it and won. The fence was within code, the mailman just wanted to be able to continue cutting across the lawn. This happened at my first house, that mailman was strange,
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