After 15 years on the job, Tan Xu has joined that select international brotherhood of mail workers that is just emerging in China postmen bitten by dogs.

Tan's demise came in April when he dropped his guard and sustained a serious bite on his right leg from a territorial cocker spaniel.

A dog and its owner have a light moment in the Chibi Scenic Region of Yongtai County, East China's Fujian Province in May 2006. Some 70 pet owners led 30 dogs for a special tour in the woods. [China Daily]

He received 3,000 yuan (US$375) in compensation from the dog's owner, but 31-year-old Tan was too scared to go out on his rounds again and plumped instead for a job at the dispatch office, checking mail and parcels.

Two dark brown tooth prints still show five months after the attack.

"They ache when it's overcast or damp," Tan said, touching his scars. The fear of rabies haunts him, despite the fact that he received a rabies shot immediately after the bite.

Tan said the owner used to fasten the dog when he came to the single-storey house in Xiaojiangfang Hutong, in Xicheng District of Beijing, but one day his delivery coincided with the owner's return home. "The dog rushed at me from the yard when he opened the door, and there was no time to react," Tan recalled.

He said three or four other delivery and maintenance people had been attacked by the dog before him.

"Deliverymen, plumbers and other professionals who have to go into houses to provide services all face the threat of being attacked by pet dogs, if the owners don't watch them," Tan said.

Yang Yuanting, head of the delivery department of Ganshiqiao Post Office, said the postmen in her department, like Tan Xu, came across many dogs every day in the hutong (narrow, winding alleys typical of Beijing), where many owners allowed their pets to roam unleashed.

"Some owners even send their dogs to chase the postmen, just for fun," Yang said angrily.

On the website of the Beijing Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention, dog owners, veterinarians, laboratory researchers of the rabies virus, doctors and nurses taking care of rabies patients, and people travelling in rabies affected regions are defined as high-risk groups for rabies. They are advised to have pre-vaccinations.

Although postmen are not listed, Beijing Post Bureau figures show that 90 of the city's 2,000 postmen were bitten by dogs from January 2004 to May 2006. Three of them were bitten twice.

The postman's problem is well-known abroad. A report on the China Radio International (CRI) website said 100 to 200 postmen were bitten by pet dogs every year in Switzerland.

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