“That’s easy. Mail carriers are in cars and have little to fear from dogs. Police DO deal with dogs. Unfortunately for owners their method of dealing with them is to shoot them. :-).”
I’m sorry, but I disagree with you there. I was a mailman for 5 years. Some routes are “mounted” -(mailboxes at the curbside) but most of them are either mixed (walking and mounted) or just walking routes.
Believe me, they deal with dogs EVERY single day of their careers. I sure did. And yeah, I got bitten a few times... big deal. I LEARNED how to DEAL with them. You learn to EXPECT them; learn to avert their attention; half of them just want to be patted anyway. Milk bones unfailingly divert ANY dog’s attention long enough for a person to retreat.
Oh, and I think one thing that makes a difference is a basic respect for ‘life’ in general. Cops are being trained to lose this.
In my area there are no walking mailmen. They ride. Cant speak for other areas.
At 13, I had a paper route in Alaska, at the end of town where the roads weren’t even paved. Lots of people kept large dogs, big enough to scare the bears away from getting in their trashcans. I dealt with large aggressive dogs on a daily basis and I never had to shoot one and I never got bit. There were a few that I had to subdue on a regular basis with a good fist hammer blow to the top of the head. You learn to read which dogs are a threat and which aren’t. I don’t understand cops shooting dogs on sight. A lot of these dogs shot are not aggressive breeds.