What Happens When the Post Office Won't Deliver Your Mail Because of a Dog You Don't Own?

Postal carriers and dogs get along like Greenpeace and Norwegian whalers. Which is to say, not well at all. If you have a roaming, potentially dangerous dog that stands between you and the mail carrier, the Postal Service can refuse to deliver your mail. Forever. And for good reason: Several thousand mail carriers are bitten each year by dogs. (California has the largest number of bites; New York City and the state of Alaska, the fewest.)

But what if the Postal Service says you have a dangerous dog at large, but you don't? That's what happened this week to one Woodley Park resident. Here's the story as posted on the Cleveland Park Listserv. To be continued....

Yesterday, we received a letter from the Post Office stating that they will no long deliver mail to our residence because of a threatening dog on our property. We do not own a dog, nor do our immediate neighbors. I suppose it is conceivable that a loose dog was observed by a US postal employee roaming our (very small) lawn area, though frankly, this is unlikely since we have not observed any such dogs previously.