Canada Post seeks new ways to protect carriers from dog, bear and human attack
Canada Post is looking for a new weapon to protect its carriers from dogs, bears and the occasional violent human.
The Crown corporation is asking manufacturers to come forward with alternatives to the small pepper-spray cans that posties now carry, which can be ineffective in a strong wind or when dogs move too quickly.
“We’re looking for the latest technology or products that are out there to protect our employees,” corporation spokesman John Caines said from Ottawa.
About 300 Canada Post workers are bitten on the job every year, Caines said. Most bites are minor. Some, however, are debilitating.
“I had a gash along my leg – about five inches long and an inch wide – and I had to get a skin graft,” said Gary Garbutt, a retired postal worker who still clearly remembers a 1986 pit bull attack in Winnipeg’s tony Charleswood neighbourhood that left him in hospital for 10 days.
“He got me on the inside of my wrist, too, and made a gash there of about two inches (before the owner called him off).”
Pepper spray might not have made much difference in Garbutt’s case, he said, because the dog was on him before he knew it.
“I turned around, he was eight feet away. He was on my leg before I had a chance to do anything,” Garbutt said.
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