Delivering the mail is a dangerous game. In Houston alone, postal carriers suffered 77 attacks by dogs last year (up 22% from 2014), putting it at the top of the United States Postal Service’s 2015 ”Dog Attack City Rankings,” a dubious honor if ever there was one.
But it’s the combative canines of Wyoming who actually pose the biggest threat to mail carriers. Although there were only 16 dog-on-mailman attacks there last year, 3.81% of Wyoming’s 420 mail carriers were involved in an attack, the highest percentage of any state.
Montana, Wyoming’s neighbor to the north, came in second for likelihood of an attack—3.45% of the state’s postal carriers experienced one last year. In third place: Iowa at 3.31%. Of those three states, only Iowa had a city with an absolute number of attacks that was high enough to land a spot on the USPS list: Des Moines, with 15 attacks, placed 30th on the city ranking.
Here’s the USPS’s full list (although it is a “Top 30” ranking, 50 cities appear on it, as many had the same number of attacks):
And here is the number of attacks by state:
Bonus fact: Puerto Rico isn’t included above, but had 27 dog attacks on postal carriers last year, giving mailmen there a 2.76% chance of being bitten. In Guam, also a US territory, there was just 1 attack in 2015.