Lady and Hendrix

The Postal Service doesn’t want letter carriers being friendly with people’s dogs.  It’s a safety issue.  There’s always a carrier somewhere who can tell the story of being bitten by a dog whose owners previously said that, “Oh, Fluffy would never bite anybody!” 

And yet here I am telling dog stories.  Why?  I don’t know… maybe I have a learning disability, or maybe it’s just a rebellious streak.  Or maybe I’ve just had a bunch of exceptionally good dogs on my routes over the past 30 years.  Trust me – there’s a lot of dogs I wouldn’t try to make friends with ever.  And then there are a few that you just can’t help but like.

One of these dogs was a little mixed breed (Collie and Shepherd?) called Hendrix.  She shared a house on North 16^th Street with an older, larger and grumpier dog named Lady.  These two dogs were not kept in a fenced yard but were usually out front, free to roam (if they so chose).  Generally they didn’t, but there were a couple of exceptions.

There were two old guys that would take a daily walk through the neighborhood, walking down North 16^th several blocks, turning right and walking to Harrison Boulevard and then returning home along Harrision.  As they would walk past the “dog’s house”, the two dogs would walk with them, and then return home when the old guys reached their own homes.

I was the other exception, and when I would start walking the area by their house, the dogs would come out and join me for a few blocks of mail delivery.  This was not something I ever encouraged… it was just their own routine.  Hendrix also had one other little habit that she picked up over the time I had that route; when she heard the mail truck coming down the street, she would run out and sit in the middle of the road forcing me to stop.  When I stopped (come on, you think I’m going to run the dog over?) she would walk around to the driver’s door (which I would open for her), jump inside and then ride to where I normally parked, walk the block with me and then go back home.

I had told my substitute carrier about this quirky behavior so the dog wouldn’t catch her off guard one day and get herself run over.  (She was looking forward to seeing the hitchhiking dog!)  Sure enough, Sue was driving down the road watching for Hendrix, and Hendrix didn’t disappoint!  She walked out, sat in the middle of the street and waited for Sue to stop the truck.  Then Hendrix walked around to the door, looked inside and saw it was someone other than me, growled and turned around and walked back home!  Sue recalled later that it was one of the few times in life where an animal actually hurt her feelings!