HUMAN BITES MAILMAN

I warned you yesterday that you would get some humor today.  You ready?  Brace yourself.  This just happened so quickly that it makes me shiver.  The graphic on your right is a map that shows the immediate environment of our residence.  Two caps, or two culs [that's French, and one of its meanings is "bottom"] that butt against one another at the top arc, separated by a low fence, as you can see.   We live in 6912 at the top of the lower placed arc and the neighbor in question lives in 6911 at the extreme of the diagonal from the 6912.  It's about 200 feet.
Our residence is attached to the main thoroughfare by a short street on the eastern down side of the crest where the top of the arc rests and the 6911 is connected to the main thoroughfare by a short street on the eastern down side if the same crest.
Well, this afternoon I came home and found the the mail delivery had taken place and that among the envelopes that had been left at our house there were four that belonged to the 6911 situated in the other block.  I picked them up and luckily spotted the mail carrier just down the street.  So I started to walk down the decline and called after him to tell him that he had made a delivery error.  Or so it appeared.  When he approached me I told him that there had been a mistake and that the mail that he had left did not belong to us.  I also pointed out that this happened fairly often with regards the name and address that appeared in the mail that I was returning.  He was reluctant to take it back, but he could see in my eyes that there was no option.  He shyly stretched out his hand and said, "Well, there is a dog there."  He did not continue to engage me in the short conversation, so I gave him my retort as he was still turning around.  "I don't belong to your union, so it's not in my contract to do your work."
The humor of this is really sick.  But, it is funny.  Imagine in this day and age that there are still people who allow themselves to be cowed into escaping from their responsibilities in such a fashion.  I keep shaking my head.  I wonder what I would do about the dog.
I do know what I did once.   I was substituting for a friend on his newspaper delivery route one Summer and in one instance was lightly "tagged" by a sassy little mutt in one neighborhood.  It only happened once.  I got some help from EFR Dion and the supervisor of the paper and the dog was put under control by the owners for the period of time that I could be expected in the neighborhood.   I was 12 years old.  I wonder how old this guy is.  Maybe he can his wife to stand up for him.  Or maybe he can throw some arsenic - laced hamburger in front of the dog.  Who knows?  I just continue shaking my head and asking myself, "What next?"