To be a bit miffed with the Post Office?

[Yambabe]

Backstory - we have a smallish staffie cross dog who we rescued from a hellish life when he was a pup. Had him for over 10 years now. With a lot of love and training he is OK most of the time but he has a pathological hatred of postmen, always has had, that I just can't seem to train out of him. If indoors he will bark like a loon and hurl himself at the door, if outdoors he will give chase while barking hysterically which obviously is a scary prospect for a postie. Only ever went to the edge of our property though, and has never caught one or bitten!

Anyway, about 8 years ago I had a letter from the head postmaster saying our dog had been identified as a health and safety risk for the postie and they wanted me to take steps to make my premises more safe or they may have to take us off the round. I was mortified.

DH and I at some expense then installed gates across the drive/path and put an external postbox on the garage wall that could be reached from the other side of the gate, wrote back to explain what we had done and received a letter of thanks.

Fast forward. This week we have had a new postie again (our fourth regular change and of course we often have temp ones to cover holidays etc). The back door is often open if we are in, so the dog has access to the garden, and poor new postie has been running the dog gauntlet up and down the path to deliver through the door until I managed to catch him and point out the postbox last week. This has happened every time our postie has changed in the last 8 years.

AIBU to think that as the Post Office identified our dog as a risk to posties they could have some sort of note on the round for new ones to let them know that they don't have to sprint in and out of our garden and be faced with what may appear to be slavering fangs of death to deliver our mail?

[fawltydoge]

yanbu as a dog owner but considering some people are bloody terrified of dogs they don't know, YABU

[Salmotrutta]

Well it wouldn't be easy would it for Royal Mail to warn every postie about every angry dog they might encounter?

They'd have to keep everything on record and continually be checking those records every time a new postie starts.

They did write and ask you to take steps after all and I'm afraid I would regard it as your responsibility to put a clear warning sign on your gate with an explanation of where to put the post.

[BackforGood]

It would be nice to think that might happen, but surely if you have a mad dog like that, then there should also be some onus on you to make a very clear sign for the gate, explaining you have a mad dog and suggesting that ALL deliveries are posted into your (made VERY obvious) box on the outside.
It's not just postmen that have to deliver things, and you shouldn't be exposing anyone to that risk.

[deakymom]

i thought they did tell them? my aunt's dog would let people in but NOT out postmen were told if he is loose on the property to make sure someone was there to shut him away so he could LEAVE (he was an escape artist too) surely it makes sense they can't hope to prosecute you for a dog bite if you have taken steps and informed them of the steps taken can you?

[HotPinkWeaselWearingLederhosen]

Don't mention the dog on the sign on the gate. Just put a sign insisting ALL correspondence goes in the box.

[WalkWithTheLonelyOnes]

FYI the postmen do get told about any "dangerous" dogs on their round.

[SqueakySqueak]

I can tell you right now, I really don't care if a dog was abused or not when they bite me. I care that the owner wasn't keeping an eye on what they knew to be an aggressive dog. Considering you will be held responsible and your dog potentially taken away or put down if he bites someone, it might be in your best interests to keep your dog inside unless he's supervised or put a sign on your gate instructing him where to put the mail. The dog is your responsibility, not the post office's.

If you love your dog, you'll take steps to set him up for success so people don't get hurt.

[MidniteScribbler]

And what if someone else tries to come to your front door? A dog like that should be securely confined in the backyard or the house. All it would take is someone to leave the gate open and you have a dog who is known to attack loose on the streets.

Your dog is your responsibility. No one should have to 'run the gauntlet'.

[Yambabe]

Royal Mail, sorry. The original letter was from the Head Postmaster at our local sorting office so I have always thought of it as the Post Office!

Thanks for the responses, sounds like IABU (at least a bit) then.

The daft thing is that if we meet our "usual" postie on the street when we are coming back from a walk (dog on a lead, obviously) he will be greeted with a waggy tail and perfect doggy manners. In fact with our longest serving postie (Neil, 3.5 years) we thought we had trained him out of it as he would even go to the gate to greet him with waggy tail while the post was going in the box. No barking, no launching at him, nothing. But as soon as a foot is set on our property the dog turns into bloody Cujo again

There is a sign on the gate, but the gate is low (waist height) and people tend not to notice it.

Deliverers of parcels, newspapers, food etc are ignored btw. It's only the postie. We have tried him leaving his bag out of sight at the corner of our street in case it was that that set him off but he still seems to know it's a postie. Would love to know what the moron who had him for his first 6 months or so actually did to him to instil this irrational hatred.