LTB 030/25 - Dog Customer Postcards – RM/CWU National Joint Dog Awareness Working Group
No. 030/25
Dear Colleagues,
Dog Customer Postcards – RM/CWU National Joint Dog Awareness Working Group
Branches and members will be aware of several current initiatives reported in previous LTBs around seeking to reduce dog attacks and incidents, including those developed by the RM/CWU National Joint Dog Awareness Working Group.
Another area that the Joint Working Group have been working on has been the development of a Dog Customer Postcard which can be delivered alongside the normal mail and is designed to help dog owners identify steps they can take to provide a safer delivery point. On one side of the postcard, the customer is asked to support some simple steps to provide a safe delivery point, and the reverse side can be used to notify anyone delivering to their address that they have a dog.
These postcards have been in use within Royal Mail for some time now and have been communicated by various channels within the workplace, but the purpose of this LTB is to now seek to promote the wider use of the Dog Customer Postcard across all delivery units.
A copy of the Dog Customer Postcard is attached, and the simple steps to provide a safe delivery point are set out here:
By following the advice below, then together we can make sure that your dog is kept safe, and I am too….
Please don’t open the door until your dog is safely secured. Please put them in another room or behind a gate first and don’t worry, I will wait! You can stick the other side of this postcard to your door to remind others to wait too.
PS did you know you can now buy gates that open with your front door?
Close gates and doors to stop your dog getting loose. If you have a back or side garden, please make sure your dog can’t get out and gates and doors are closed.
Install a letter box cage. Sometimes dogs attack or snatch mail from the letterbox and this can cause serious injuries to a postie’s hands, including amputation of fingers, as well as causing injuries to the dog. If you can install a letter box cage at the back of your door it will protect your post, your dog, and the postie’s fingers.
Provide an alternative delivery point. If you are struggling to do any of the above, then please consider fitting a secure mailbox on the edge of your property that I can deliver safely to.
The Dog Customer Postcard has received positive feedback from both OPGs and indeed customers with Royal Mail now confirming that there are some cases of customers displaying the postcard at their property and near to the front door to advise:
Please wait whilst I secure my dog before opening the door.
This is another initiative that I have no hesitation in supporting and would encourage all of our representatives, in particular, our Workplace Safety and Area Safety Reps to make contact with their relevant managers to ensure these postcards are readily available in delivery units. Royal Mail has advised that the postcards can be secured through OPL supports, who should maintain an adequate supply.
Royal Mail has also confirmed that the postcard will shortly be translated into the Welsh language and made available within the next couple of weeks. This is to further build on particular activity within Wales which recently culminated in the Wales Dog Safety Partnership Event held in January and which was reported to branches in ODM 006/24, issued on 16th January.
The postcard is designed to help dog owners identify steps they can take to provide a safer delivery point, and if displayed by customers should also offer OPGs a useful visual prompt that there is a dog on the premises. Where a situation arises where the deliveries may need to be halted for safety reasons, the P6705 stickers (a copy also attached) should be used on all returned mail items to identify the unsafe reason(s) that prevented any delivery attempt.
Any enquiries to the content of this LTB should be directed to the Outdoor Department, email address: Pharacz@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Bouch
Assistant Secretary
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