UK Postal Workers Attacked By Elderly Cat

Everyone has heard stories of dogs barking at, and sometimes even biting, postal workers who are trying to deliver the mail to their owners' homes. But have you ever heard of an attack cat?

Apparently this is exactly what is happening in the United Kingdom! The national postal service has had to suspend their postal delivery services to the Brayshaw residence after their cat attacked several postal workers.

Senior Cat

Whilst all this might sound like the work of a very young, spunky cat, it is not. It is, in all actuality, the work of one very old, very territorial, senior cat named Tiger.

Tiger is certainly no spring chicken at 19 years old - his favorite pastime is sleeping away the day in the sunshine.

Cat Attacks

Most homes in the United Kingdom have letterbox openings in their font doors where their mail is pushed through. In order to deliver the post, UK postal workers have to walk through a home's front yard to get to the front door so that they can put any letters directly through the letterbox.

The UK postal service claims that little old Tiger attacked and chased their postal workers over the course of several weeks, causing the postal authorities to stop all mail delivery to the Brayshaw house on High Bank Street in Farsley.

Instead, Tiger's pet parent, Tracy Brayshaw, must now collect post from their local Royal Mail office, causing Brayshaw to claim that the ban was "a bit silly".

Brayshaw, a 43 year old pharmacy dispenser, described her black and white cat, Tiger, as being prone to sleeping for at least 20 hours per day.

"We're talking about a 19 year old geriatric cat here who likes lazing out in the sun. There have been three incidents where Tiger's jumped through the cat flap and is said to have scratched a postie, so they've decided to suspend our post. He's never done anything like this before," explained Brayshaw in an interview with the BBC.

Her daughter, Amy, 17, also added:

"Tiger sleeps, he drools when he sleeps and he likes climbing trees, but in the space of three weeks we've had our post banned because he has attacked the postman. Apparently he attacked one postman on the leg and on the arm and chased him down the garden path. He is very territorial but he's just an average cat really. He wakes up in the middle of the night meowing because he just wants some attention. He's not a monster."

Royal Mail

The UK Royal Mail service is attempting to negotiate with Brayshaw to prevent Tiger's territorial attacks on their postal delivery workers and resume deliveries to the Brayshaw residence.

In fact, the Royal Mail has issued a statement to the UK media stating the following:

"We are sorry for the inconvenience to Mrs Brayshaw and, as we want to resume delivery of mail to her address as quickly as possible, we're trying to agree on a way to do this and avoid our employees suffering further nasty injuries, as has happened three times already."

US Postal Pet Attacks

Whilst there is no recollection of a cat attack, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Humane Society of the United States, have claimed that U.S. Postal Service letter carriers are the third most likely group of people to be attacked and bitten by dogs.

According to the US Postal Service:

"Every day that a letter carrier comes into a dog's territory, the dog barks and the letter carrier leaves. Day after day the dog sees this action repeated. After a week or two, the dog appears to feel invincible against intruders. Once the dog gets loose, there's a good chance it will attack. A dog threatening from its own yard could lead to the temporary curtailment of mail delivery."

Always practice responsible pet ownership.

Photo Credit: how_long_it_takes