USPS employees are attacked by dogs every day. Here are the cities with the most bites in the US.

U.S. Postal Service employees are facing an increasing number of dog attacks. According to the USPS, 5,800 mail carriers were bitten last year.

“Mail carriers face potential dangers every day, and none is greater than an encounter with dogs. It only takes one encounter for a mail carrier to potentially get injured,” said Leeann Theriault, USPS manager of employee safety and health awareness, in a press release about an advertising campaign running this week to raise awareness of the issue.

By state, California had the most incidents of dogs biting mail carriers last year (727 cases, up from 675 in 2022). Texas ranked second with 411 incidents, followed by Ohio (359), Pennsylvania (334) and Illinois (316). New York, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan and Missouri round out the top 10 states.

Here are the 20 U.S. cities with the most dog attacks in 2023, according to the USPS, along with the number of individual incidents:

1. Los Angeles (65)
2. Houston-City (56)
3. Chicago (48)
4. St. Louis (46)
5. Cleveland-Cleveland (44)
6. San Diego (41)
7. Dallas-Fort Worth (39)
8. Cincinnati (38)
9. Philadelphia (34)
10. Columbus, Ohio (33)
11. Kansas City, Missouri (32)
12. Indianapolis (30)
13. Memphis, Tennessee (29)
14. Louisville, Kentucky (28)
15. Minneapolis (27)
16. Albuquerque, NM (26)
17. San Antonio (26)
18. Sacramento, California (26)
19. Milwaukee-Mitchell (23)
20. Dayton, Ohio, (23)

Dog owners must expect legal consequences

The potential damage could also be financially painful for dog owners, the USPS warned. The average cost per insurance claim for a dog bite is $64,555, according to the postal service, citing information from the Insurance Information Institute.

“If a postal worker suffers an injury, the owner could be responsible for the employee’s medical bills, lost wages, uniform replacement costs, and pain and suffering,” the USPS said in a press release.

To avoid confrontation with dogs, postmen are trained to:

Should a dog attack occur, the wearers are trained to stand firm and, if necessary, use a defense mechanism.

Most people know roughly what time their mail carrier comes each day, so you should lock your dog inside, behind a fence or on a fence beforehand to minimize the potential danger, the USPS advises. Dog owners should also not let their children receive mail directly from the mail carrier, as the dog may then view the mailman as a threat to the child, it adds.

If the problem of dangerous dogs is not solved, owners may be required to rent a post office box to deliver their mail.