Barking

You might think this story part of a developing normblog series. Whether or not it is that, it has a certain interest (free registration):

Houma, La. - A mail carrier wasn't worried when he heard barking. The man had already made sure the pooch in the yard he was about to deliver to was chained up.

It wasn't the barking dog that got him, it was a barking man, police said.

Mark D. Plumb, 20, of Butler, Mo., was arrested and charged with simple battery Wednesday after he ran barking from a house and bit the letter carrier on the shoulder, Houma Police spokesman Lt. Todd Duplantis said.

Plumb said he bit the carrier as a joke and has no history of criminal activity or mental illness, police said.

"I've never heard of something like this," Terrebonne Parish Postmaster Bill Frye said. "I was shocked when I heard about it."
.....
"We don't expect that a human being is going to run up and bite one of our carriers," said Frye.

The Terrebonne Parish Postmaster hits the nail on the head. There's more here (again, free registration):

The postmaster said that there was nothing funny about Plumb's joke.

"It's serious," he said. "This carrier's out there doing his best to get people their mail."

According to eMedicine.com, 10 to 15 percent of bite wounds become infected. Human saliva contains as many as 100 million organisms per milliliter, with as many as 190 different species.

190 different species, and that's just in your mouth. Me, I've only got 146. (Thanks, MK, for the lead.)