People have teeth. I don't see the mailman shying away from a human. He's just a pussy.

I'd say YDI or FYL depends on the position of the dog and mailbox. I've seen people with a fenced in front yard and a mailbox on the house. If this is the case, the dog may appear vicious (barking and such) and never had a reason to show agility (already at the gate or guarding the mailbox). If so, YDI, keep your dog inside during mail time or get a mailbox on the outside of your fence. If this is not the case, then FYL cause it sucks to have to go get your mail, especially when they're just making excuses.

Remove the dog from the postmans path to walk to your house or get a po box.

The fact is, my wife was in the front yard with my dog when this happened. She apologized that my dog was in the way and the mailman still refused to give her the mail. I totally understand the position of the mailman. And I did actually move my mailbox last night. I'm just upset with the way he handled the situation because we try our best to keep the dogs in our back yard around the time the mail is going to be delivered. It just happened that my dog really had to pee!

8 years and arthritic? I'm going to guess it's a large dog. Your mailman has every right to feel safe in his route, whether you think it ludicrous or not. By the way, I work with dogs and have had plenty of old arthritic dogs go after me. If anything it makes them grouchy.

If your dog has free access to the mailman/mailbox they aren't allowed to deliver your mail. Being a mailman myself I have learned that you can get fired for it. There is a strict do not deliver to a house with a dog outside and not leases/not fenced in policy.

Not to mention your dog could go after the mailman for handing your wife mail if the dog sees the mailman as a threat. It's happened before.

The age old struggle between mailman and dog continues

Dogs can be surprising, even with h arthritis. I had a dog who had it, unless it came to food, and so she would suffer through the pain if it meant something off the table. I see where the mailman is coming from.

You can absolutely tell whether a dog is friendly or not by looking at him. Dogs speak mostly through body language and it is incredibly easy to tell how a dog is feeling. Dogs give a number of warnings before they bite. Heck, they give warnings before they even growl. If you work a job like this where frequently encountering dogs on a daily basis is an inevitability, perhaps training is required to give these people a better understanding of them. It's why so many dogs are shot by cops. Are there aggressive ones that people need to be aware of? Absolutely, but it's easy to tell the friendly ones from the aggressive ones. Any dog can bite, yes, but assuming every dog is going to bite you is a pretty terrifying way to live. I feel very lucky that our UPS guy was so in love with my childhood Rottie that, when my grandfather decided she was too much dog for him at his age (too much energy and knocked people over when she couldn't stop her massive body in time), the driver jumped at the chance to add her to his family where she spent the next 12 years. He loved our Dobes too, but they weren't as massive and excitable as the Rottie girl was so they were never up for rehoming.