U.S. Postal Service closes Oxford’s pepper-spraying dog investigation

Published 8:22 am Thursday, October 12, 2017

When Holly Jubera posted a video of a mail carrier pepper spraying her two dogs repeatedly, she was only looking for some advice from friends and family.

However, people started sharing the video which went viral in just a couple of days, catching the attention of local, then national media outlets.

After the EAGLE ran the story on Sept. 26, Jubera’s story was seen on television talk shows, like CBS’s “The Talk,” and in national newspapers and television news stations like the New York Post and Fox News.

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While Jubera and her husband, Steve, were eating a post-church lunch on Sept. 25, Steve noticed on the camera feed that a U.S. Postal Service mail truck had come to the house to deliver packages. While their regular mail is delivered to their mailbox in the front of the house, packages are often driven around to the back of the house to the garage area.

When the couple arrived home, they were greeted by their two dogs, Colonel – a great Pyrenees and their 9-month-old golden retriever, Liberty. Soon after, Holly’s eyes began to tear and burn.

The couple watched the security camera video and discovered the cause of Holly’s sudden reaction. The mail carrier had sprayed the two dogs with pepper spray multiple times while putting the packages near the back door – and then getting back out of his truck, for unknown reasons, and picking the packages up and putting them back into the truck, while continuing to spray the dogs.

The Juberas decided to report the incident and show the video to the U.S. Post Office in Oxford.

The dogs did not suffer any lasting injuries.

On Tuesday, U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Enola Rice told the EAGLE in an email that, “the Postal Service investigated the incident and followed up with appropriate corrective action. As a matter of policy, we are unable to comment further on specific personnel matters.”

The name of the mail carrier has never been released and Jubera said the man was not one of her usual carriers and assumed it was a part-time carrier since the delivery was on a Sunday. The U.S. Post Office will deliver packages for Amazon Prime customers on Sundays.

Jubera said she heard from a friend who is a local mail carrier that the pepper-spraying postman was fired.

“They had a district-wide safety meeting on Sept. 29 and it (the pepper-spraying incident) was talked about as the first topic,” Jubera said.

Jubera said the response to the incident has been mostly positive.

“Those saying I should have had the dogs on a leash or in a fence simply didn’t read the article to know we have an electric fence and that the dogs can’t get within 30 feet of the mailbox,” she said.

“I had a friend tell me she now gets slips in her mailbox to pick up packages with a note, ‘dog’ on it.”