It's been a high-profile week for the difficult relationship which exists between postmen and dogs - a rather one-sided relationship which leads to around 5,000 postmen being bitten every year.

Not only has there been a Court case against the Welsh postman who delivered a fatal kick to a Yorkshire terrier which was snapping at his ankles, but another postie - Simon Healey, from Liversedge - won "substantial damages" against a Cleckheaton dog-owner after being badly bitten in the groin by her springer spaniel.

Both cases prompt a question to which no-one seems to have a clear answer: what responsibility do householders have to ensure that people delivering to their home are able to do so without being put in fear of being bitten?

You see very many houses with "BEWARE OF THE DOG" signs on their gates and sometimes you even see the dog. But what you don't see at most of those houses is a locking postbox on the outside for mail and newspaper deliveries.

So presumably the householder, having issued a clear warning that the house is home to a dog which is so protectively territorial that it could attack an intruder, still expects deliveries to the door.

It's not on, is it?

The Leeds County Court judgement in favour of Simon Healey is an important precedent, apparently. Previously, claims against dog owners have failed if it has been the dog's "first offence". Only if their animals had "a known propensity to attack" were owners deemed responsible for taking measures to protect the public from them.

Unfortunately, by their very nature, every dog has the potential to attack. Most don't, fortunately. But some others do, unexpectedly and often against their usual nature. The judgement is a welcome acknowledgement of that.

A spokesman for the Communication Workers Union has now urged all dog owners to take out insurance in case of their pets attacking passers-by. He would have done well to advise them also to keep their dogs tethered or penned, or to fit an external postbox of the sort that the spaniel's owner has now had installed - rather late in the day.

That way, there's bound to be a big drop in the number of postmen being bitten, and the risk of any dog being fatally kicked will be eliminated.

Before dog-loving readers rush angrily to put pen to paper, in no way am I condoning the kicking of dogs other than in extreme cases of self-defence. But nor do I think it's right that postmen (and paper boys and girls, meter readers, etc) should have to put up with the threat of being bitten while they're doing their job.

On the same theme, what liability do householders have for ensuring that their dog does not frighten a passer-by to death?

I ask this because the other evening, on a suburban stroll through a residential area, I was walking on the public pavement past a house garden when there was a sudden savage barking and snarling as a huge Alsatian hurled itself at the fence two feet away from me and appeared to be doing its best to leap over the top.

It gave me something of a turn. My pulse rate and heartbeat soared instantly.

Now, what if it had in fact given me a fatal turn, and I'd keeled over on the pavement? I was alone, so there would have been no way of linking the dog's outburst to my death. But if it had happened when someone was with me and had been able to make a feasible connection between the two, would my grieving dependants have been able to claim substantial damages against the dog's owner?

As far as I know, there hasn't been a test case of this sort. But given the tendency nowadays to sue over just about anything, I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.