How mail carriers are learning to avoid being attacked by dogs

Heather Paul adopted an American pit bull terrier with a troubled past.

Animal control officers in downstate Bloomington found the dog several years ago running in a cornfield with bloody paws and a 20-pound frame. A woman adopted the dog but later abandoned her in a trailer without food and only toilet water to drink.

"What's incredible is this is the most loving dog I've ever had in my life," Paul said. "Dogs are incredibly resilient."

That affection - and her expressive body language - makes the 7-year-old Gal the perfect model for demonstrating dog behavior even around strangers.

Which is why Paul brought Gal to the Carol Stream post office this week to teach letter carriers about understanding aggression and fear in dogs in an effort to protect them from a notorious problem on the job.

"Under the right circumstances, any dog can bite," she said.

The safety training comes in the wake of a U.S. Postal Service report released last week showing 6,244 workers across the country were attacked by dogs last year - down from 6,755 in 2016. Chicago ranked eighth in the annual list of cities with the most dog bites to carriers.

The postal service is highlighting the issue as part of National Dog Bite Prevention Week, an awareness campaign running through Saturday and organized by a coalition of insurance companies, anti-cruelty groups, veterinarians and Victoria Stilwell, an Animal Planet dog trainer and Paul's close friend.

Paul, a State Farm public affairs specialist, speaks out against animal cruelty and helps postal workers prepare for the inevitable encounters with unfamiliar dogs. But her message also applies to any dog owner.

"Nearly all of these situations are preventable," she said.

Paul cleared up a common misconception that a dog can attack out of seemingly nowhere. Not so, agreed Andrea Salis, a DuPage County Animal Care and Control humane educator who also met with workers in the regional processing center.

"A dog bite is kind of the equivalent of a human getting so mad they're screaming their head off at you, and we don't get there out of the blue," Salis said. "We go through so many stages of irritation before we're yelling at somebody. Dogs do the same."

But those early warning signals can go unnoticed or be mistaken as "positive signals," Salis said.

"A dog that's wagging its tail just means it's a dog that's aroused, which means it can be excited, happy to see you, ready to play, wants to engage," she said. "It can also be a dog that's aroused and stressed and ready to fight."

So pay attention to the motion and position of the tail, Salis said. In more aggressively-minded dogs, the tail is stiffer, higher. In fearful dogs, the tail drops lower and can curl behind them and under their belly.

"The best thing you can do is give that dog your side. Show them you mean them no harm, give them wide berth and avoid eye contact," she said.

Why do dogs display aggression? And why are mail carriers at risk?

"The most common reason for aggression in dogs is fear," Salis said. "So they're afraid, and they're defending themselves, their territory, their people. So when we take this from a dog's perspective, a stranger is entering their property, approaching their stuff, and in many cases, postal workers are going to look kind of weird, so you might be carrying a bag. That changes your shape and makes you more likely to be perceived as a threat."

Dogs also can show aggressive behavior because of medical problems, pain, or frustration. Human error also can contribute: Unneutered dogs and dogs that are chained are more likely to bite, Salis said.

"They feel cornered already because they can't get away," she said.

A dog initially can react to stress or threats with yawning, blinking, squinting, or lizardlike licking of their lips. Dogs can turn their head away or even their body as a sign of appeasement.

As dogs grow more concerned with the perceived threat, the warning signs are more pronounced. Their ears flatten, their body stiffens, they stop motion completely and focus on the source of the threat, growl and eventually snap and bite.

If the situation escalates, try to avoid running away - "never ever turn your back on a dog," Salis said - and distract the dog by throwing an object off to the side or sounding a small air horn. Mail carriers can use their bags or a jacket to "feed the bite" and make the dog fixate on that.

"That gives you a lot of time to get away from the dog and get somewhere safe," she said.

Paul and her pit bull, Gal, also visit schools through the "Kindess is Powerful" program to help kids - roughly half of all bite victims - safely approach dogs.

"We want the dogs to be able to make the decisions for themselves whether or not they want to be petted," she said.