UpdAte last post/Delivery drivers/ruined packages/Dogs

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

We moved out to the country and have a long driveway.  By the driveway my husband built a large wooden box with a lid. It has two signs on it that indicate packages are to be left there.  I also have a sign on my door that says DO NOT LEAVE PACKAGES ON DOORSTEP.

We have three dogs that go in and out of the house regularly.  If a package is delivered while they are outside or if They slip out and I haven’t caught the package, they inevitably destroy it. This week alone I have lost three packages, two delivered by UPS and one by the postal service.  The last one was a painting my cousin did using one of our grandma’s handwritten recipes.  That’s pushed me over the edge.

Ideas??? This particular door is the only one that’s set up for the dogs—we have an invisible fence.  The other doors are too close to the cow barn that we share a driveway with and we do not want the dogs near there or using that area. I also have goldens that love being outside and I don’t want to restrict them to just being indoors, because our house is small and the two youngest dogs need to run.  we honestly thought delivery drivers wouldn’t walk up to the door with a throng of hyperactive golden retrievers, but I guess we thought wrong. They are friendly and not scary in the least, and the drivers love to pet them.
I just want what I buy.

I am super frustrated.  

Edited December 16, 2022 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

This is how it went with Amazon’s customer service…

[Jann in TX]

I would opt for another box at your door step with a HUGE sign that says leave deliveries in the box or their company will be held responsible.

I might also get snarky and make a TON of signs up and down my drive reminding delivery drivers not to feed the dogs my packages.

 

[TheReader]

With Amazon, do the option to get a call back from a real person. That may yield better results. 

Otherwise, if feasible to move the other box near(er) the door (since they are coming up there anyway), I'd do that. Or, if some have caught on, and others haven't, then a 2nd box near the door, with another sign (and sign on the door) should do the trick. 

I'm so sorry about the painting from your cousin; that's just awful. 😞 

[Innisfree]

I’m so sorry about the painting, not to mention all the other things that have been destroyed.

This isn’t going to be what you want to hear, but I think you can only control how your property and dogs are managed. You can register preferences for the drivers, but they’re likely to be moving so quickly, especially at this time of year, that it’s easy for them to miss special instructions. They have a pattern that they’re used to, they’re moving quickly, and they’re not looking for exceptional delivery situations.

Could you put a locked gate at the end of the driveway, just by the box for deliveries? Then they’re forced to stop and think about what should happen.

Otherwise, limiting the dogs to some area away from deliveries seems like the only thing you can control. They’ll be safer away from delivery trucks anyway.

 I wish I thought you had a better chance of managing delivery drivers, but I suspect managing the dogs would be easier.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

30 minutes ago, Innisfree said:

I’m so sorry about the painting, not to mention all the other things that have been destroyed.

This isn’t going to be what you want to hear, but I think you can only control how your property and dogs are managed. You can register preferences for the drivers, but they’re likely to be moving so quickly, especially at this time of year, that it’s easy for them to miss special instructions. They have a pattern that they’re used to, they’re moving quickly, and they’re not looking for exceptional delivery situations.

Could you put a locked gate at the end of the driveway, just by the box for deliveries? Then they’re forced to stop and think about what should happen.

Otherwise, limiting the dogs to some area away from deliveries seems like the only thing you can control. They’ll be safer away from delivery trucks anyway.

 I wish I thought you had a better chance of managing delivery drivers, but I suspect managing the dogs would be easier.

I’ve been wracking my brain for solutions.

1) the driveway is shared by the farm we are surrounded by.  They don’t use it often, only to unload and then load heifers in and out of the barn, but the legal agreement is no fencing on either side of the driveway or barriers in the front. There is sometimes large farm equipment they’re driving up the driveway so fencing is out.

2) We can easily adjust the invisible fence the avoid the door/porch step, but the dogs have to use that door, so they’d be getting shocked every time so that wouldn’t work. The other house doors border the farm’s heifer barn so those have to remain off limits. 

DH says we are just not going to be able to have things delivered because we can’t keep losing this much money and items, but we also live someplace where if Walmart doesn’t have it, you have to order it. No Amazon lockers or anything.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

[Harriet Vane]

40 minutes ago, Jann in TX said:

I would opt for another box at your door step with a HUGE sign that says leave deliveries in the box or their company will be held responsible.

I might also get snarky and make a TON of signs up and down my drive reminding delivery drivers not to feed the dogs my packages.

 

This.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

They’re overall very nice and well behaved dogs. They just cannot seem to resist the lure of packages or new loaves of bread, now that they’ve figured out how to open the bread drawer in the kitchen.

[itsheresomewhere]

Is there a way for you to put the box in the middle of the driveway close to your house? Maybe add wheels to make it easier to move out of the way when needed.  That might get the message across. 

Edited December 12, 2022 by itsheresomewhere
I

[kbutton]

Maybe change the signage to be primarily pictures--something like the slashed circle icon over a picture of steps with packages, and right next to it, a picture of the box where the packages go with a big smiley face? I swear some people refuse to acknowledge words.

If that doesn't help, do you have a nearby family member that would let you have things delivered who wouldn't find it stressful or intrusive? 

Could you have things shipped to work? 

Could you speak specifically to UPS or the post office if they deliver most of the packages?

Right now there are seasonal workers (UPS at least used to hire family members during the holidays, but they usually stay on the truck) for both who might not be as careful or might be overwhelmed, but they can leave notes for the person on your route.

[kbutton]

Oh, maybe you could put an empty delivery package (or filled with rocks) in clear plastic and maybe attach it right on top of the box where it's supposed to go and put a big arrow by it? It might take some contact paper or a sacrificial plastic bin, but it sounds like it might be worth the trouble.

[Shelydon]

A sign that says dangerous dogs do not enter?

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

8 minutes ago, Shelydon said:

A sign that says dangerous dogs do not enter?

Haha I thought about that! 😂🤣

Eventually they’ll be able to be in a fenced in area behind the house, like they were in our old home, but that’s a year or two out because it involves building a door where there isn’t one and then building a fence. When we bought this house we were told the barn wasn’t being used for anything so we hadn’t considered the back door and side doors proximity to the barn, until one day we woke up and there were cows.

I can get packages delivered to work but I think I’m going to try increased signage. Maybe paint the box red with yellow letters or something.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

[sweet2ndchance]

I also live in a very small rural town with only a small Walmart. We also have a tiny mom and pop shop that is the local pickup point for UPS and FedEx. It's also where we take Amazon returns. We can request that our packages from UPS and FedEx be held there. Do you have someplace like that in your town?

[kristin0713]

Do you have any other door that your dogs could use? I have our invisible fence on two separate loops for this very reason. Well, she doesn't destroy packages, but she barks "ferociously" (not really) and scares the delivery drivers. I don't want her barking at drivers or people walking down the street so usually I just let her out in the back. We have the front looped separately and she knows the boundary just for her safety in case she gets out. 

Otherwise, I like the idea of a danger dog sign at the front of the driveway, maybe also with a stop sign, and also ANOTHER box at your front door in case they are oblivious. 

[pinball]

1 hour ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

They’re overall very nice and well behaved dogs. They just cannot seem to resist the lure of packages or new loaves of bread, now that they’ve figured out how to open the bread drawer in the kitchen.

They look like a gang that doesn’t take any sh!t from anyone. 
 

“do you see what we did to this bear? Do you? Let that be a warning.”

 

LOL

[Shoeless]

I agree with moving the box near the door and putting a BIG sign that says "Put packages here!"

The issue may be that the driver's gps location thingy is telling them "You must leave the package right here!" otherwise it doesn't count as delivered. 

[EKS]

Another vote for putting the box where they are leaving the packages anyway (the door) with a sign. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

2 hours ago, MissLemon said:

I agree with moving the box near the door and putting a BIG sign that says "Put packages here!"

The issue may be that the driver's gps location thingy is telling them "You must leave the package right here!" otherwise it doesn't count as delivered. 

I didn’t know that—but we have a long enough driveway that it might mess up gps.

I feel like I should be able to train the dogs not to touch the packages; they don’t mess with a package or envelope in the house, like on the couch or something. Just outdoors.

[Tap]

A few ideas:

Have USPS, Fedex and UPS hold your packages and pick them up there so they don’t come to the house. 

Put delivery instructions in with all the mail delivery places to direct them where to leave them.

If you have a garage with opener , get the style of opener that allows delivery drivers access directly into the garage. 

Use an app like Shop that tracks your packages and notifies you if they are delivered so you are more likely to catch them.

 

So frustrating 😞sorry you lost something precious 

[easypeasy]

You could possibly have amazon/UPS/etc ship to a dropbox/location near your home vs your front door? 

Otherwise, I’d ensure the box you have has a lid on it (a chicken wire lid could work) to keep the dogs out, put it on your front porch, and add signs with icons of packages with arrows pointing “in.”

Could set up a Ring camera on your front door and have it alert you when someone is there and speak to them directly when they are on your porch, directing them to the box  

Would not suggest a dangerous dog sign for non-threatening goldens. We had friends who were sued bc they had a sign like that and, when one of their (extremely well-trained) goldens walked out their side door, a door to door salesguy saw him, panicked, freaked out running, tripped, broke an arm…. It was a giant mess. He was trespassing but their “dangerous dog” sign was used as evidence that their dog was knowingly… dangerous. 🤷‍♀️

Finally, this is a behavioral issue that could be trained out of them (as you mentioned above) but will take a lot of effort since they sound so enthusiastic about their packages, lol.

It’s a good thing they’re cute, huh? Sorry about the painting from your cousin. 😞

[happi duck]

The idea of an alert of some kind (ring doorbell was mentioned up thread) sounds like maybe a quick thing while stuff gets figured out.  I'm assuming the dogs are only out when someone is home?

[KungFuPanda]

Can you get a P.O. Box? Or ship to a friends house? Do you have a neighbor who will let you use their porch for a drop off of you’re prompt about retrieving packages? Can you get a box or shelf for your porch and post a giant sign to put packages up there?  Or track your packages so you know to watch for them? How quickly fo they pounce? Our Alexa glows when a package arrives. Can you put a gate on the porch so the dogs go through it to go outside but then you close it and they can’t get on the porch until you let them? No delivery service is going to solve this problem for you so you’ll have to get creative. 

[BusyMom5]

Put a box on your porch, too.  We have a big black one, it doesn't look bad!  

[Eos]

On 12/12/2022 at 4:27 PM, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

This is how it went with Amazon’s customer service…

"Please be rest assured."  I'd like to use the laughing emoji because this is ridiculous but don't want to seem callous.  You can't make this stuff up!  The box on the porch and an enormous sign seem like good options.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

10 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

Can you get a P.O. Box? Or ship to a friends house? Do you have a neighbor who will let you use their porch for a drop off of you’re prompt about retrieving packages? Can you get a box or shelf for your porch and post a giant sign to put packages up there?  Or track your packages so you know to watch for them? How quickly fo they pounce? Our Alexa glows when a package arrives. Can you put a gate on the porch so the dogs go through it to go outside but then you close it and they can’t get on the porch until you let them? No delivery service is going to solve this problem for you so you’ll have to get creative. 

No neighbors—I can’t even see another house from where we live. And in the year and a half we’ve lived here, I haven’t met anyone. I considered a PO Box but our mailing address is so goofy that our post office is 20 minutes away instead of the post office literally a mile down the road.

I can track packages until the day they are delivered, but all it says is out for delivery. Sometimes they come at 8 am and sometimes after 5. 

Part of this is that we just don’t want delivery trucks coming up the driveway at all, and that’s why we put the delivery box by the road and not by the house.  in fact when we bought the house, the estate we bought it from had it in a disclosure that you could not get deliveries at the house but would have to walk down the driveway for mail/packages.  We loved that because we’ve got kids and dogs outside all the time, especially in the summer. And in the winter the driveway is often icy, and we already had one UPS truck slide and hit my husband’s pickup truck. But must be something changed from when we bought it. 

[Amy in NH]

We also live in a tiny town in a rural area.  We can have packages delivered to the one wee general store in our town, or have them held at a dropbox location (like Walgreens) in a bigger town 15 minutes away.  Are you 100% positive there aren't ANY places a short drive away that would hold your packages so that you can avoid having deliveries on your property?  If so, I agree with others that you could move the box to your porch instead of at the end of the driveway.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

42 minutes ago, Amy in NH said:

We also live in a tiny town in a rural area.  We can have packages delivered to the one wee general store in our town, or have them held at a dropbox location (like Walgreens) in a bigger town 15 minutes away.  Are you 100% positive there aren't ANY places a short drive away that would hold your packages so that you can avoid having deliveries on your property?  If so, I agree with others that you could move the box to your porch instead of at the end of the driveway.

I could have them delivered to work or open a mailbox at the UPS store or PO Box.  I googled at couldn’t find a store or anyplace that would hold package that’s not 20 minutes away. To be fair, everything is probably a 20 minute drive except the Dollar General.

To be honest if I have to drive to the UPS store or to work to pick up packages, it would be closer to just go shopping and not get deliveries.  We can’t find everything but we’d just have to suck it up and figure something else out. What I don’t know is how to order books, because the Barnes and Nobles is extremely expensive and a pain about ordering books. There are no independent bookstores and I have gotten used to thriftbooks lol. But that’s fine. 

I think this is what we are going to wind up doing is just no longer ordering online, because after talking to DH about it, we really just don’t want delivery trucks coming up the driveway. It’s icy in the winter and muddy in the spring(dirt driveway), there’s no good places for a truck to turn around, and there’s often kids and dogs outside.  But since it’s a shared driveway, we can’t put a gate or fence there either.  Our package box is down by the road by the mailbox, but if they aren’t going to use it we’d rather just not order online vs have them keep coming up to the house.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

[happi duck]

I think you can get a PO box at any post office so the PO near you might work.

How often does someone else use the driveway?  After telling the driveway sharer, I'd consider blocking the drive with cones or something for a time with a sign "no delivery trucks past this point!  Use (color) delivery box!".

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

7 minutes ago, happi duck said:

I think you can get a PO box at any post office so the PO near you might work.

How often does someone else use the driveway?  After telling the driveway sharer, I'd consider blocking the drive with cones or something for a time with a sign "no delivery trucks past this point!  Use (color) delivery box!".

I would have to ask DH, but I believe the farm actually owns the driveway or almost all of it. There was all kinds of legal stuff about the driveway specifically when we bought it. I don’t think they actually use it much, or at least I don’t see it, but I never know when they’ll be there either.  They seem to use the barn part of the year for storage and for cows in the spring. The house we own was part of this big family farm, then a family member purchase it outright from the rest of the family and subsequently died, so the land is carved out strangely. I think the plan was for this person’s child to inherit and keep the whole property in the family for a long time, but she didn’t want it and sold it to us.

There is a post office just down the road from us and if I could get a PO Box there that would work. I assume Amazon and UPS deliver to PO Boxes.

Eventually the dogs will have a whole big backyard with a physical fence, and that problem will Be solved, but I am still not crazy about having delivery trucks coming up to the house. It’s hard to describe but the driveway is oddly shaped(so are the property lines) and so they have to back back down to the road which just feels unsafe.

[happi duck]

Hopefully the farm owners wouldn't mind moving cones for a time while you "train" the delivery drivers.  Sounds like keeping them from coming down the drive is in their best interest too.

I am confounded that they go out of their way to deliver to the house when they could save so much time using the box!

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

9 minutes ago, happi duck said:

Hopefully the farm owners wouldn't mind moving cones for a time while you "train" the delivery drivers.  Sounds like keeping them from coming down the drive is in their best interest too.

I am confounded that they go out of their way to deliver to the house when they could save so much time using the box!

This confounds me too. 🤣. We’re getting a snowstorm but after that DH is going to paint the box a bright can’t miss color with a big sign.  This is a big wooden box with a lid that he built, too, it’s not something small and easily missed. Two of my children can easily fit in it at the same time lol lying down.

[katilac]

1 hour ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

There is a post office just down the road from us and if I could get a PO Box there that would work. I assume Amazon and UPS deliver to PO Boxes.

Nobody but USPS delivers to post office boxes. 

4 hours ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

To be honest if I have to drive to the UPS store or to work to pick up packages, it would be closer to just go shopping and not get deliveries..

Why not just wait until you go to work or happen to be going to town? UPS pickup place does not equal UPS store; numerous stores serve as UPS locations. Yes, you might be waiting an extra couple of days, but that's going to be true, possibly even more so, if you try to find everything locally. 

Why would a box on the porch not work, to at least solve the ruined packages problem? If your driveway is that long, I think the previous poster is right, and they probably can't leave packages that far from the house (particularly when it's not a private driveway). 

On 12/12/2022 at 4:07 PM, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

I’ve been wracking my brain for solutions.

1) the driveway is shared by the farm we are surrounded by.  They don’t use it often, only to unload and then load heifers in and out of the barn, but the legal agreement is no fencing on either side of the driveway or barriers in the front. There is sometimes large farm equipment they’re driving up the driveway so fencing is out.

2) We can easily adjust the invisible fence the avoid the door/porch step, but the dogs have to use that door, so they’d be getting shocked every time so that wouldn’t work. The other house doors border the farm’s heifer barn so those have to remain off limits. 

DH says we are just not going to be able to have things delivered because we can’t keep losing this much money and items, but we also live someplace where if Walmart doesn’t have it, you have to order it. No Amazon lockers or anything.

We have a cabin with a shared access road; it's a mixture of houses and camps, and we are at the very end. The people with a gate closer to the road just gave us a key.  If a gate otherwise solves your problem, give them a key.  

But I wouldn't assume picking up is a no go. Local post office for USPS, UPS access point for UPS. There aren't many places that are Fed Ex only, but you can request pickup for them as well. The UPS site will tell you the closest access points. 

I'm all for local shopping, but 100% local doesn't sound altogether practical for you. 

[sweet2ndchance]

48 minutes ago, katilac said:

I'm all for local shopping, but 100% local doesn't sound altogether practical for you. 

This. It certainly isn't practical for us either in our small town. Our mom and pop store isn't a UPS store which is why you can use it for either FedEx or UPS. We call it the "Package Store" (which I know has a completely different meaning in other places lol) and all it is is a little store that sells boxes and tape and such and serves as the pickup point for FedEx AND UPS. They will also hold packages from either carrier for you to pick up. It also happens to be the drop off point locally for Amazon returns. The next nearest Amazon return point is 2 hours away. 😕

When we lived overseas, we didn't get mail delivered to our house at all. All mail was handled only at the U.S. post office on one military base and we lived on a different military base. We just got used to making it part of our routine to go pick up the mail once a week or once every other week. If we got a package, we would get a ticket in our box and you took the ticket to the counter to pick up your package. It was different than what we were used to coming from the States where mail is brought to your house usually but it wasn't too long before we got used to the new system. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

We order everything, mostly from Amazon: groceries, tools, clothes, Christmas presents, electronics, household things like lamps and appliances. I haven’t been in a store in I don’t know how long. Even before we moved and lived in a village we ordered via mail, mostly because I don’t like driving and don’t want to drive. We leave the house to take DD to school and pick her up, and work. Other than that we really don’t go anywhere.

We legally cannot put up a gate or fence the driveway in anyway. It’s right in the shared driveway agreement that we signed when we bought the place. That also means that they can’t gate or fence it either, but since the farm owners wrote the document to start with I assume that they won’t be doing that.  I suppose we could ask but since they wrote this document a year and a half ago, I would be surprised if they’d change their mind. I say shared driveway, but legally I believe they own almost all of it and we just have documentation that we can use the part we don’t own. I think our property borders the driveway on our side at the road and we don’t actually own any part of it until it’s much closer to our house. It’s not long enough to be a road and we can’t move it because there’s a small part of the land that is technically wetland, and that would be the only other practical place to put a driveway. And they will not sell the part they own; we asked when we bought the place.

I googled UPS access point and there’s one about 25 minutes away at a CVS in the shopping area. It’s in the opposite direction of everyplace I go though, so I don’t really know how practical that would be. If I am doing that, I may as well just go shopping and not wait two days for things.

As far as the dogs, they’re only interested in packages outside. I’ve had a package ready to go to my sister sitting on my couch for three days and they’ve totally ignored it. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

and really, this is a first world problem lol. I can shop in person, I just don’t really like to.

[KungFuPanda]

On 12/14/2022 at 9:26 AM, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

No neighbors—I can’t even see another house from where we live. And in the year and a half we’ve lived here, I haven’t met anyone. I considered a PO Box but our mailing address is so goofy that our post office is 20 minutes away instead of the post office literally a mile down the road.

I can track packages until the day they are delivered, but all it says is out for delivery. Sometimes they come at 8 am and sometimes after 5. 

Part of this is that we just don’t want delivery trucks coming up the driveway at all, and that’s why we put the delivery box by the road and not by the house.  in fact when we bought the house, the estate we bought it from had it in a disclosure that you could not get deliveries at the house but would have to walk down the driveway for mail/packages.  We loved that because we’ve got kids and dogs outside all the time, especially in the summer. And in the winter the driveway is often icy, and we already had one UPS truck slide and hit my husband’s pickup truck. But must be something changed from when we bought it. 

Why can’t you just rent a box at the post office a mile away? That would fix everything. Your mailing address is whatever you tell people it is. 
 

I wonder if your dogs go after the packages because they don’t smell like home and must be stopped before they attack?

[katilac]

OP, did I miss a reason why putting a second box on the porch won't work? Or why you would have to make a special trip to work to pick them up, instead of just waiting until the next time you go to work?  

If you've been ordering everything for a long time, and haven't shopped much since being in this location, I think you're going to be very unpleasantly surprised at how long it takes. And how much you can't get. 

One difference between picking up shipments and doing all the shopping in person is that the online ordering can be done at your convenience, and/or whenever you think about it. The drive to the shopping area is equal in both scenarios, but picking up packages is hella quicker than shopping for everything in those packages. You don't like to shop, and you don't like to drive, and irl shopping is going to mean a very big increase in both of those things. You don't just have to drive to the shopping area, you have to drive to the various stores once you are there. 

If at least some of the stores have order online, pick up in store, that would make it somewhat more manageable, but still all the driving between places. And you have to keep track of when things arrive and how long the store will keep them for. 

4 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

Why can’t you just rent a box at the post office a mile away? That would fix everything.  

It actually probably won't, because only USPS can deliver to a post office box. Some companies will default to USPS if a PO Box is used, but many will not (it requires a certain kind of software). 

Sometimes you can add a "street address" premium option to your post office box, so that might be worth asking about. OP would need to compare the types of orders they make to the restrictions on street addressing. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

We can put a box on the porch but that doesn’t solve the issue that I really don’t want delivery trucks coming up to the house. We’ve had more than one get stuck, one slid and hit my husband’s truck, and there are kids and dogs running around.  There’s no real rhyme or reason to delivery times to keep kids indoors when expecting a delivery.

We can have things delivered to work, but they have a small office foyer where packages could be held, and we order a significant amount.  My boss would definitely ask that we pick up the packages daily. I only work eight days a month.

I didn’t shop before the move, but the dogs were in a fenced backyard or indoors then, and deliveries went on the enclosed front porch in the old house.  It was on a street, too, so the trucks just parked there.

[KungFuPanda]

On 12/14/2022 at 3:37 PM, katilac said:

Nobody but USPS delivers to post office boxes. 

I didn’t know this!!!

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

Well, one mystery solved.  The mailman was just here and I managed to grab the box and speak to him. I asked if there were two regular postal workers on this route because sometimes packages are left in the box down by the road and other times by the door.  
He said no, it’s just him, but he loves my dogs and gives them treats, so if he can see that they’re outside he’ll come up to the house to play with them for a minute and give them snacks. 

My dogs very much love snacks.

But now I wonder if they believe he’s leaving them a snack present in the packages. 
 

I asked him to please leave the packages in the box but he’s welcome to come up to the house to give the dogs their pets and treats(he drives a small pickup so I don’t mind that up by the house). This doesn’t solve the UPS or FedEx truck issue, but most of our packages come USPS from amazon. 

[kokotg]

20 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

Well, one mystery solved.  The mailman was just here and I managed to grab the box and speak to him. I asked if there were two regular postal workers on this route because sometimes packages are left in the box down by the road and other times by the door.  
He said no, it’s just him, but he loves my dogs and gives them treats, so if he can see that they’re outside he’ll come up to the house to play with them for a minute and give them snacks. 

My dogs very much love snacks.

But now I wonder if they believe he’s leaving them a snack present in the packages. 
 

I asked him to please leave the packages in the box but he’s welcome to come up to the house to give the dogs their pets and treats(he drives a small pickup so I don’t mind that up by the house). This doesn’t solve the UPS or FedEx truck issue, but most of our packages come USPS from amazon. 

This is probably the most adorable explanation for your problem I could have hoped for.

[alisoncooks]

2 minutes ago, kokotg said:

This is probably the most adorable explanation for your problem I could have hoped for.

I agree! (Though also frustrating because he should totally ask before feeding someone’s dogs, lol.) But!!! At least it’s a kind reason, not a malicious one. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

3 hours ago, alisoncooks said:

I agree! (Though also frustrating because he should totally ask before feeding someone’s dogs, lol.) But!!! At least it’s a kind reason, not a malicious one. 

He’s an older gentleman, probably in his 70s. I bet he’s carried treats for decades lol.

Fortunately my dogs have no allergies or medical conditions that prevent treats, so it’s fine(oldest dog is a little overweight but that’s because she sneaks the cat’s food and loaves of bread whenever she can).  
I did tell the dogs there are no snacky snacks in the packages the nice man leaves, but I don’t think they listened.

[kbutton]

4 hours ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

He said no, it’s just him, but he loves my dogs and gives them treats, so if he can see that they’re outside he’ll come up to the house to play with them for a minute and give them snacks. 

I am glad that's okay for your dogs, lol!

Delivery people like to make friends with pets--sometimes their well-being depends on it. (Signed, Daughter of a mailman with a walking route...he was bitten more than once and cornered by a dog so dangerous that it had stranded someone else on a roof; it had the whole neighborhood in terror for about a week!) 

I am glad there is a benign explanation.