Mailman seen in video spraying dog with repellent says he felt threatened

ZACHARY, LA (WAFB) - A Zachary woman is livid after a mailman was seen on video spraying some type of repellent at her dog.

The woman did not want to be identified, but says she watched her surveillance video show a mailman dropping off a package and then walking over to a fenced in area and spraying her small chihuahua.

RELATED: Security cam catches postman spraying barking dog

The dog was barking at the courier throughout the video. After he sprayed the dog once, he went back a sprayed it again.

“He actually went physically further into my area to approach my dog,” the owner said. “You could safely drop a package off without even getting close to the fence at all.”

The U.S. Postal Service issued this statement:

“The Postal Service strives to always provide the best possible service to our valued customers. It is disappointing when, on rare occurrences, we fall short of that goal. Local management was made aware of this video and appropriate corrective action will be taken. Due to privacy concerns, we do not comment publicly on specific personnel matters. This is clearly unacceptable behavior and does not reflect the efforts of the thousands of professional, dedicated Letter Carriers in our workforce. We apologize for any inconvenience this incident may have caused our customer.”

The mailman was on his route again Tuesday, Mar. 12. He did not want to be on camera, but when confronted, said what’s shown is not the whole video and that he was worried about the dog getting through the fence because it was being aggressive.

“There’s no bite marks on my fence,” the owner said. “There’s no scratches on my fence. There’s no claw marks because he’s not an aggressive animal. He did what dogs do because he’s supposed to bark at strangers. He barks at people that don’t live there," the homeowner said.

A neighbor who saw the video says she was shocked after watching it.

“I was really taken away because it looked like he actually went back a second time to spray the little dog a second time,” Charlotte Ingram said. “It was uncalled for.”

The owner of the dog says it’s doing well after the incident. She also says she hopes the video will encourage the postal service to keep an eye on how pets are being treated by its employees.

On Wednesday, Mar. 13, USPS said “corrective action” will be taken against the employee. They did not, however, specify what that corrective action might entail.

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