Long Island letter carriers brave rain, snow and more dog attacks than their city colleagues, study shows

Long Island letter carriers were attacked by dogs 65 times last year — more than in all of New York City combined and equal to the number in top-ranked Los Angeles, according to new statistics from the U.S. Postal Service.

The data, released as part of the Postal Service's 2024 National Dog Bite Awareness Campaign, which runs through Sunday, shows that mail carriers in Suffolk County were attacked by canines 34 times in 2023, compared with 31 times in Nassau County.

The USPS does its rankings by cities, not counties. But Suffolk's dog attack total ties with Philadelphia's for ninth-most nationwide while Nassau's ranks 12th, behind Kansas City. 

The high number of attacks on Long Island stems from residents' propensity for dog ownership and the number of single-family homes versus apartments, the Postal Service said.

The five boroughs, which have nearly triple Long Island's population, reported 50 dog attacks on postal workers last year.

“Last year, there was at least one dog bite [on Long Island] in which the letter carrier needed to be hospitalized and required an operation,” said Ernesto Sanabria, USPS' human resources manager for Long Island and Queens. “It can be extremely serious.”

Details of Long Island's dog attacks, and the nature of the injuries sustained by letter carriers, were not available. The incidents, Sanabria said, include both dog bites and cases in which the canines tackle the letter carrier.

In total, there were 296 dog attacks on letter carriers in New York State last year, down from 321 in 2022, the data shows.

Mail carriers in Brentwood were attacked four times last year — the most in Suffolk — while there were three incidents in Great Neck and Valley Stream, tied for the most in Nassau, the data shows.

And Long Island, Sanabria said, is already on pace to surpass last year's numbers.

The cities of Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago reported the highest number of dog attacks last year, which totaled 5,800 nationwide, officials said.

“Letter carriers are exposed to potential hazards every day, none more prevalent than a canine encounter,” Leeann Theriault, USPS' manager for employee safety and health awareness, said in a statement. “All it takes is one interaction for a letter carrier to possibly suffer an injury.”

And it's not just the mail carrier that is likely to feel the pinch of a dog bite.

Data from the Insurance Information Institute shows the average cost to the homeowner per insurance claim — including medical bills, lost wages, uniform replacement costs and pain and suffering — for a dog bite is $64,555.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.