Many people may call on your household on a daily basis for legitimate reasons. Delivery persons, milkmen, utility workers, meter readers and care workers to name just a few. In particular, Royal Mail’s postmen and women deliver six days a week to more than 29 million addresses across the UK and dog attacks are a significant hazard with an average of seven postmen and women attacked each day across the UK.
These attacks rise during the school holidays and in the summer months when parents and children are at home with dogs sometimes allowed unsupervised in the garden or out onto the streets without restraints.
As a postwoman myself I have received a dog bite, which fortunately was not serious. However, 2660 postmen and women were attacked across the UK by dogs from April 2015 to April 2016 some leading to a permanent disabling injury. While the number of attacks has fallen by 10 per cent nationally from the previous year after the change in legislation and greater understanding through their dog awareness campaigns, it still remains unacceptably high.
A simple sign at the entrance to a property and also on or by the letterbox could help to reduce these figures significantly, helping both the potential victim and the dog. By making anyone calling at your house aware of the presence of a dog, they can then take better precautions to ensure their own safety and that of dog living there.
