Denver mail carriers face rising dog attack risk

During a recent walk, Denver mail carrier Joseph Sorich approached a house on his route when the door unexpectedly opened, and a large brown dog lunged, biting his arm and puncturing his skin.

“It seemed like a single tooth had went into my arm,” Sorich said. “It definitely seemed like my vein was punctured, because it just was bleeding forever.”

In 2025, there were 45 reported dog attacks on mail carriers in Denver, the third-highest number among U.S. cities, according to the U.S. Postal Service. Denver ranked behind only Los Angeles and Dallas. Denver’s ranking rose to third in the country, from tenth in 2024 and eighteenth in 2023.

Even with warning systems and safety training, mail carriers still face daily risks: broken fences, loose dogs, children running outside with pets behind them and dogs that push through doors before owners can stop them.

In June, the Postal Service launched its annual National Dog Bite Awareness Campaign, an effort to reduce attacks on mail carriers nationwide. Denver Animal Protection also tracks attacks on delivery workers and enforces rules after serious incidents.

Sorich said he has been bitten five times in six years as a mail carrier, including one or two puncture wounds. That does not include the smaller nips to his legs, which he said happen more often.

“There’s some carriers I’ve talked to that have been absolutely mauled and have had surgery post these bites.” Sorich said. “Then there’s also carriers that have way more gentle interactions, but they’re still bitten and whatnot.”

Before Sorich was bitten on the arm, the dog’s owner was leaving the house to take the dogs on a walk. Sorich said he did not know the owner had dogs because the family had recently moved in, and he had not yet had a chance to introduce himself.

“As soon as a family moves in, I like to ask them, ‘Hey, do you have any dogs?’” Sorich said. “I always like to ask them if I could meet the dog there and then, just to see how that encounter’s gonna go.”

There are many reasons a carrier may not know about a potentially aggressive dog. A carrier may be filling in on an unfamiliar route. A dog may be visiting the home temporarily. Or a customer may not realize their pet can become aggressive when a stranger approaches the door.

The Postal Service has tried to reduce that uncertainty through alerts.

Andrew Romano, a U.S. Postal Service district safety specialist for Colorado and Wyoming, said carriers can flag addresses where dogs may pose a risk.

“They have a method to be able to let other carriers know, ‘Hey, if you’re on my route, there could be a dog here,’” Romano said.

Throughout June, Romano visits post offices in Colorado and Wyoming to remind mail carriers how to protect themselves and how to work with homeowners to reduce risk.

“We’ll do our stand-up talks,” Romano said. “We’ll do kind of reenactments, so we’ll hold out the satchel. We’ll spray that horn as well, because the horn is really loud, if they’ve never heard it before. It is kind of obnoxious, so it’s good to kind of get used to that as well too.”

Mail carriers have three primary tools to protect themselves during a dog attack: their satchel, which can be used as a shield; a loud horn; and dog repellent spray.

John Woolley, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 47, which represents mail carriers in Denver and surrounding communities, worked for 25 years as a mail carrier. He said those tools can help, but they have limits.

“The dog spray does work, usually on the little dogs,” Woolley said. “But the bigger the animal, not so much. It really depends on how intent the animal is to get you.”

Woolley said a satchel can deter a dog for a short time, but a persistent dog may get around it. Woolley was bitten twice as a carrier. One bite was a small nip. In another case, he used his satchel to avoid a dog at first, but the dog eventually bit him in the back of the leg, puncturing the skin and causing heavy bleeding.

“It was just somebody dog-watching for somebody else,” Woolley said, “and she was unaware of how aggressive that dog was, blew right through past her, right through the door and came right after me.”

Woolley said that earlier this month, his branch had four major dog attacks on mail carriers in three weeks. The most severe involved two pit bulls. One dog ripped the carrier’s bicep, while the other bit through his hand and then went for his calf.

“He could see his bone structure inside of his hand,” Woolley said. “And then down on the leg was 26 stitches.”

Woolley said the carrier was helped by a neighbor. He said the attack could have been fatal because the carrier was knocked to the ground and the dogs went toward his neck. Woolley said he was told the dogs had been involved in four previous attacks.

“If they’re not going to be properly trained, they either need to be taken from the owners or euthanized,” Woolley said. “But it’s up to the owner of the animal to say yes or no, ‘I’m going to be able to take care of this dog, to correctly train it to get it better.’ But there’s a lot of times when the owner will just say, ‘I can’t control my animal.’”

Noah Imai, a Denver Animal Protection field sergeant, said the agency handles dog attacks based on the severity and circumstances of each case. For minor incidents, officers may issue citations. In more severe bite cases, the owner may be summoned to criminal court.

“Each situation is unique,” Imai said. “Maybe there’s a broken latch on the gate or a broken latch on the door, and we’re going to require them to fix that, or we’re going to require them to keep the dog somewhere else in the home.”

Repeated or severe offenses can result in a dog being designated as potentially dangerous, which places additional requirements on the owner. In some cases, owners may lose custody of their dog. Imai said about 10% of the dog attacks Denver Animal Protection responds to involve delivery workers.

“Some of our worst bites happen to mail carriers,” Imai said. “It severely impacts their ability to work. I just spoke to somebody who is worried about how he’s going to pay his bills from missing work and these injuries, and whether these injuries are so severe that he won’t be able to do this work in the future.”

Woolley recalled another recent attack in which a dog bit a carrier’s hand, shook it and tore a tendon.

“You could actually see the tendon hanging out of the top of his hand for his trigger finger,” Woolley said, “and he still can’t bend his finger yet, because that hasn’t been repaired yet.”

Most dog attacks involving mail carriers result in injuries to workers. But dogs can also be injured when they try to break through windows or doors.

“I had a route where I had a Dalmatian that every day would just absolutely go nuts on a picture window,” Woolley said. “Every day just beat the crap out of a picture window.”

One day, Woolley noticed the window had started to crack and left a note for the owner. The window was not fixed. Months later, the inside pane shattered.

“That dog ended up getting 37 stitches all up its paw up into its leg and arm,” Woolley said, “so it was quite dramatic. Lots of blood.”

Aggressive dogs do not only affect mail carriers.

“We recently had a bad bite where the dogs were running loose on the block,” Imai said. “The guy got attacked, and as they were driving away to the hospital, kids were walking up that block. So in just a matter of minutes, there could have been a difference in severity and to the victims.”

Sorich said he thinks most mail carriers he has spoken with have had some kind of aggressive dog encounter.

“It takes very little time being in the post office and delivering as a carrier to have a moment like that,” Sorich said. 

Those encounters can change how carriers move through a route. Sorich said dog risks add to the mental weight of the job because carriers learn to scan every home for signs of a pet.

“You become more and more careful as you deliver,” Sorich said. “There will be dog toys, there will be dog houses in the front yard. There could be scat around the house. With all these things. So you’re basically paying attention to all the signs you can, and you’re doing that constantly.”

James Boxrud, who works in communications for the U.S. Postal Service, said the agency’s main concern is employee safety.

“Dog bites are preventable,” Boxrud said. “You know, if you’re driving down the road and somebody hits you, that’s not preventable, but we can try to get in front of this dog bite issue by making customers aware and making our carriers aware.”

The Postal Service encourages dog owners to secure pets in another room before opening the door for a carrier, avoid letting children take mail directly from carriers when dogs are present and use Informed Delivery to know when packages are expected.

If a carrier feels threatened by a dog, or if a dog is loose or unleashed, the Postal Service may ask the owner to pick up mail at a post office until the carrier is assured the dog has been restrained. If a dog is roaming the neighborhood, neighbors may also be asked to pick up mail at the post office.

Woolley said the physical injuries from dog attacks can vary from small wounds to lasting damage, but the emotional impact can also stay with carriers long after the bite heals.

“I used to have a letter carrier that was absolutely terrified of dogs,” Woolley said. “Because she had been bitten several times and just wanted nothing to do with dogs, so recovery time really varies. The physical stuff can vary because of tendon damage and so on. It could be a lifetime injury or just weeks or days or months, but then the mental aspect plays differently for every single person.”