The United States Postal Service has implemented a new dog bite prevention program to protect USPS employees. Called the Paws Program, the program was rolled out in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and the western region of New York, among other areas, in June. And now, I think that Texans need to start doing this as well!

The USPS Paws Program

The USPS Paws program is meant to help letter carriers protect themselves from potential dog bites. As part of the program, a paw sticker will be placed on the outside of a mailbox where there is a known dog in the immediate area.

A yellow sticker indicates a dog resides at the next delivery address, and an orange sticker means a dog resides at that address- giving the USPS employee a heads-up about dogs in the neighborhood.

Obviously, dog attacks and bites are a big issues for mail carriers all across the country, but we seem to have a bigger issue here in the lone star state!

Last year, more than 5,800 USPS employees were bitten by dogs – 411 of those were in Texas. Texas ranks at No. 2 in the nation for bites involving USPS employees. Houston was one of the cities with the largest number of attacks.

Although the Paws Program hasn't officially been rolled out in Texas, it would be great if Texans began to put these warning stickers on their mailboxes. Of course, this won't do any good if there are stray dogs on the loose, but if our USPS carriers could get even just a little heads-up, maybe the amount of dog bite attacks will go down in Texas!

Here are some tips for dog owners to ensure the safety of the USPS employees.