Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/mailmain-spraying-cats/

When you think of mail carriers, you probably think of someone who is friendly and greets people in the neighborhood.

For the longest time, my family and I had a wonderful rapport with our mailman who would always stop and say hello whenever he brought the mail. He was beloved by our dog, who was sad when he eventually retired. For the most part, our mail carriers tend to like the animals they encounter in the neighborhoods. But this isn’t always the case.

After surveillance video was released showing a mail carrier spraying two cats on a front porch, there are neighbors in the Ohio neighborhood who are concerned about the safety of their pets as well as any stray animals in the area.

Following its post on social media, many more have voiced their worries as well.

The video shows the unidentified USPS mail carrier aiming a canister at the two cats who were just chilling and doing their own thing. The liquid in the canister was later identified as a mix of mineral water and cayenne pepper.

The two cats obviously ran away in terror after they got sprayed. After the mail carrier sprays them, he delivers the home’s mail before moving onto another home. The video further showed that he sprayed another different cat on a different front porch.

Naturally, many people were upset by this, with FOX 8 reporting that one resident, Andrea Hicks, stating, “They [the cats] weren’t even around him, and he went and took out the pepper spray and was spraying away.”

Hicks clarified that the feline victims were a pair of friendly stray cats who’d been living in the neighborhood for years. The cats were a part of the Cleveland Animal Protective League’s Trap-Neuter-Return Program. Many neighbors in the neighborhood would help out to feed and care for the cats.

But it wasn’t just the stray cats who got a face full of stinging liquid. Clinton Smith, a different neighbor, saw that his porch had some strange orange liquid. That was the same day that the video footage was released, so it didn’t take long for Smith to come to the horrific realization that his own pet cat had gotten sprayed in the face with pepper spray.

Neighbors filed a report about the incident to the United States Postal Service, and their officials have said it’s under investigation according to FOX 8 News. They did acknowledge that all mail carriers are given a cayenne pepper “repellent” to use in case they do happen to cross paths with an aggressive animal. The USPS Spokesperson Naddia Dhalia spoke to FOX 8 and said that the spray is harmless, with its side effects disappearing within 10 to 15 minutes.

While that is fine if there is ever an aggressive animal, the concerning part is that none of the cats in the video were acting aggressively. They were acting quite the opposite as they were just minding their own business.

The concerned neighbors are hoping that there will be some kind of ramifications for this kind of aggressive behavior from the mail carrier, as they don’t want to see repeated events like this happen again.

Watch the disturbing footage below:

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Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog