Photo by furcafe

Temperatures that regularly hit the high 60s and low 70s might be nice and summery for most of us, but for letter carriers, the warm weather is getting a bit toothy. With the mercury rising, so too has the number of dogs that have attacked postal workers in Northern Virginia.

Manassas Patch reports that since the end-of-winter heat wave two weeks ago, three letter carriers in Northern Virginia have injured by dog attacks while delivering the mail.

The uptick in dog bites on letter carriers comes, not unexpectedly, from owners leaving their pets outside to enjoy the warm sunshine, but failing to properly secure them. Some of the attacks have been vicious. A postal employee in the Dale City-Woodbridge area has missed work since needing two surgeries to treat an attack by a dog that jumped a fence. A letter carrier in Arlington was bitten 11 times by two pooches that ran through an open gate.

In the past year, there have been 49 reported dog attacks on U.S. Postal Service employees, Patch reported.