Canada Post workers are speaking out about safety after a mail carrier in Nova Scotia suffered a serious dog bite Thursday.
The mail carrier was working on Guest Drive in Bible Hill, N.S., and had just delivered mail to a house with a black Labrador retriever tied up in the yard.
“This dog is known to us,” said supervisor Sean Hoover.
“We knew it was secured outside. He noticed the dog was getting a lot closer than he expected it to be and then next thing he knew, that dog was on him, and it was biting into his arm,” Hoover said.
Pictures taken once the carrier returned to the sorting depot show serious wounds and puncture marks.
“That's when I noticed something sticking out of his arm, which appeared to be a tooth that had come off the dog,” Hoover said.
“This is the worst one I've seen so far and I'm lucky to say I have not seen anything worse than that,” he said.
The mail carrier did not require stitches, but wasn’t working on Friday.
The fate of the dog has yet to be determined.
In accordance with Canada Post policy, delivery to the street was suspended, and is set to resume Monday.
The post office uses stickers to tell carriers where dogs live on their routes, but Hoover says the public can help make carriers safe too.
“If we're going to come on site and deliver your mail, we would like some responsible animal owners to make sure that their dog is secure and cannot get at us,” he said.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Dan MacIntosh
