Nov 23

New dog laws for attacks on postal workers?

Up until a few weeks ago I thought dog attacks on postal workers (meaning not just the Royal Mail but other delivery folks from parcel delivery to supermarket delivery) were isolated and meant as humour in comics.

New dog laws for attacks on postal workers?

Just the other week a courier came to the front door to deliver a parcel, as usual my dog Molly is first to welcome any visitor with a friendly smile and wag of her tail, but the delivery guy jumped back and insisted I restrain Molly. I told him that Molly is very gentle and in no way would harm him, indeed at this time she was sniffing the neighbours cat who was standing on my driveway.

The courier told me that he gets bitten about once a week and this was his first shift from a lengthy absence following a nasty dog bite, at which point he showed me a huge scar on his hand where a ‘friendly’ dog bit him. I was shocked, maybe I have been living in my happy little dog owner bubble but I really wasn’t aware of the dangers in mail delivery. The courier then rolled up his trouser legs to show his legs littered with scars from bites and claw scratches. Bare with me, I have one last anecdote before I get onto the main topic of this post which is regarding dog laws. A few weeks ago I was out distributing leaflets for a local event, all I was doing was shoving some leavlets into some letterboxes. This was a short while after I saw the courier but didn’t think anything of it. After about 20 minutes I had to change my techinque of letterbox delivery as every now and again a dog would hear the letterbox, come running and launch towards the letterbox. I started off casually putting the leaflet into the letterbox to a shove and run aproach!
So I finally come on to the point of the post, hearing in the news recently about tougher laws for dogs and their owners following attacks on postal workers does not suprise me. Scotland and Norther Ireland already have such laws in place with Wales in the process of implementing their own.

The current system in England is flawed as the attack occurs on private property which severly limits what action can be taken under current law. Changing the law to provide the Royal Mail (and hopefully some common sense to extend this to delivery in general) will hopefully create some awareness and encentivise dog owners to take precautions to prevent attacks happening.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) have stated that there are around 5000 attacks on postal workers each year, Billy Hayes the CWU General Secretary also went on to say

“Sir Gordon’s recommendations take on board our own long-standing campaign objectives of securing new UK-wide laws which apply on private property, moving away from breed-specific legislation, introducing microchipping and getting serious when it comes to prosecution and punishment.

England will soon be the only part of the UK without updated dogs laws as Scotland and Northern Ireland have already introduced new improved legislation and Wales is legislating in the current session”

What are your thoughts? Should there be tougher laws for attacks on postal workers? Give us your comments below.

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