Three-dog chase halts mail deliveries for East Central Spokane neighborhood

When East Central resident Brenda Albaugh didn’t receive a package she was expecting back in July, she called the U.S. Postal Service.

“The woman on the phone informed me that there was a dog issue,” Albaugh, 42, said. “She said that three dogs had chased the mail lady down the street and that, you know, ‘we’re gonna cut off mail from the street.’ ”

Postal office spokesperson Kim Frum confirmed via email that what postal workers told Albaugh was accurate. Due to “ongoing issues with dogs posing a threat to our employees” over the last few years, deliveries from the 2300 block to the 2599 block of East Sixth Avenue have been suspended, Frum wrote. The mail carrier in the June incident was not injured, Frum said.

The three dogs involved in the most recent incident have posed a problem for postal workers in the past.

“The dog owners were notified multiple times over the last few years to comply with the request to restrain their dogs, even signing agreements to do so,” Frum wrote. “However, the dogs are still roaming free, and they present a safety concern to our employees.”

Sixth Avenue residents have had to pick up their mail from the Metro Post Office off of Alki Avenue for the past two and a half months. Due to the threat of dogs in the neighborhood, residents were not informed that their delivery service would be stopped.

“It was strange because I’m a fishing guide up in North Idaho. So I came back home, I’m like, where’s my mail?” Cody Storms, 42, said. “I’m not getting the medication that I order.”

Albaugh’s family also receives prescriptions via mail. Though less than 5 miles away from the neighborhood, a combination of traffic, trains and wait times at the post office itself has led to some residents saying that a round trip has taken them anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. The trip to the distribution office is just another task to add to residents’ already busy to-do list.

“It’s my gas, my time, my wear and tear on my vehicle, you know,” Albaugh said.

Gordon Armstrong, 58, said that he felt the situation was unfair since the problem dogs were not his, but he has gotten used to the routine of driving to pick his mail up.

“New habit, new way of living,” he said.

Because the postal carrier was not injured in the incident in June, the Postal Service did not report the dogs to police or the city, Frum said. This added a layer of concern for Albaugh regarding the safety of the neighborhood.

“Down at the community center – that’s where the middle school children line up in the mornings. And then not this corner but the following corner – that’s where elementary school kids are lining up,” Albaugh said. “So, we have kids out every morning. There’s aggressive dogs around, and the middle schoolers don’t have their parents, you know?”

Albaugh, Storms and Armstrong all said they have never personally seen anything concerning related to dogs in the neighborhood before.

A spokesperson at Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service was only able to find one record of calls for a loose dog in the neighborhood in 2024, but there have been calls in previous years.

In a statement to The Spokesman -Review, Frum said, “The Postal Service apologizes for the inconvenience experienced by the neighborhood,” but due to the ongoing threat to employees, door to door mail delivery service will not return.

“There were 10 reported dog bites against mail carriers in Spokane last year,” Frum wrote. “When a carrier feels unsafe, mail service can be halted – in this case not only for the dog owner(s), but for the entire neighborhood.”

Community mail boxes are to be installed in the next few weeks, which will allow for delivery to the area to resume at a centralized location.