In Which Cities Are Postal Workers Most Likely to Be Attacked By Dogs?

Where is man’s best friend not really so friendly? These are the cities with the highest incidents of dog attacks on Postal workers in 2015.

The Postal Service has released its annual list of the cities with the worst cases of dog attacks on Postal workers in 2015. A total of 6,549 Postal employees were attacked by dogs last year.

These cities proved to be the most dangerous for letter carriers:

Ranking City, State 2015 Dog Attacks 2014 Dog Attacks Change Percent Change
1 Houston, TX 77 63 14 22
2 San Diego, CA
Cleveland, OH
58 4737 1121 2357
3 Chicago, IL
Dallas, TX
57 4643 1114 2433
4 Los Angeles, CA 56 75 -19 -25
5 Louisville, KY 51 40 11 28
6 Kansas City, MO 46 32 14 44
7 Philadelphia, PA 44 33 11 33
8 Columbus, OH 43 22 21 95
9 Portland, OR 41 31 10 32
10 Fort Worth, TX
San Antonio, TX
39 2624 1315 5063
11 Denver, CO 38 40 -2 -5
12 Phoenix, AZ 36 35 1 3
13 St. Louis, MO 35 39 -4 -10
14 Seattle, WA 34 29 5 17
15 Detroit, MI
Long Beach, CA
32 2827 45 1419
16 Indianapolis, IN
Sacramento, CA
31 3529 -42 -117
17 Minneapolis, MN
Baltimore, MD
30 3327 -33 -911
18 Miami, FL
Cincinnati, OH
28 2624 24 817
19 Brooklyn, NY 26 15 11 73
20 San Francisco, CA 25 23 2 9
21 San Jose, CA
Albuquerque, NM
St. Paul, MN
24 20
16
6
4
8
18
20
50
300
22 Oakland, CA
Milwaukee, WI
23 2211 112 5109
23 Charlotte, NC
Dayton, OH
22 2318 -14 -422
24 Las Vegas, NV 21 19 2 11
25 Pittsburgh, PA
Jacksonville, FL
20 2210 -210 -9100
26 Rochester, NY
Fresno, CA
Stockton, CA
19 18
17
9
1
2
10
6
12
111
27 Wichita, KS
Flushing, NY
Baton Rouge, LA
18 25
14
9
-7
4
9
-28
29
100
28 Memphis, TN 17 13 4 31
29 Richmond, VASalt Lake City, UT 16 179 -17 -678
30 New Orleans, LA
Omaha, NE
Des Moines, IA
Toledo, OH
15 19
14
11
10
-4
1
4
5
-21
7
36
50

To go along with the release of the data, USPS Safety Director Linda DeCarlo announced two new measures the Postal Service is taking to protect its employees.

The first one will be an addition to the Postal Service’s Package Pickup application – customers will be asked to specify whether or not there is a dog at the address when scheduling a package pickup. This will go into effect May 13.

The second change, which will take effect later in the spring, will allow mail carriers to use package scanners to indicate the presence of a dog at an address when confirming delivery of a package.

About the Author

Ian Smith is one of the co-founders of FedSmith.com. He has over 20 years of combined experience in media and government services, having worked at two government contracting firms and an online news and web development company prior to his current role at FedSmith.