Grand Rapids postal workers get dog-bite safety warning after 83 attacks

Eighty-three letter carriers were bitten by dogs on the job in the Grand Rapids district last year, and postal safety trainer Hector Hernandez came to West Michigan with a blunt message: stay vigilant. The U.S. Postal Service said the threat was not abstract. In many of those local cases, workers already knew a dog was on the property and still got caught off guard.

The Grand Rapids Post Office teamed up with Hernandez in an April 16 local release that called dog attacks and bites “100 percent preventable” when owners stay vigilant and properly restrain their dogs. USPS scheduled demonstrations for April 22 at the Grand Rapids Carrier Annex, 630 Division Ave. S., and April 23 at the Grand Rapids East Paris Station, 3970 S. Greenbrooke Dr. SE. The agency said the message was aimed at the people who deliver through neighborhoods every day, but the warning applies just as directly to any household with a dog that lights up at the front door, fence line or mailbox.

USPS said an unrestrained dog can do more than threaten one carrier. If a dog keeps creating a safety problem, mail delivery can be interrupted to that home and, in some cases, to the entire neighborhood until the animal is properly restrained and customers pick up mail at the post office. That is a hard consequence for owners of high-drive dogs who treat every knock, ring or passing set of footsteps like a cue to explode at the barrier.

Hernandez’s advice, as reported by WOOD-TV, was practical and unsentimental. He told carriers never to trust a dog just because it looks friendly, never to assume a leash or electric fence makes a dog safe, and not to turn and run from an attacking dog. Instead, he said to back away slowly while facing it. Carriers were also told to keep a satchel, hat or even mail between themselves and a charging dog, and to hold doors shut when ringing doorbells. Postal leadership also reviewed how to document dangerous dogs along routes.

The scale of the problem is not small. USPS said more than 6,000 postal employees were attacked by dogs in 2024, up from about 5,800 in 2023. In Michigan alone, the agency reported 231 dog attacks on postal employees last year, with Detroit listed at 32. The Grand Rapids warning landed as a reminder that dog behavior at the curb is not just a training issue. It is a public-safety problem with real consequences for workers, owners and the routine of every street they share.