Last week, something pretty normal happened at a house in Houston: the postal carrier brought the mail, and the dogs hanging out in the yard barked at him. What happened next, caught on a security camera, was unusual: the man sprayed all three dogs with what appears to be pepper spray, even though they were secured behind a heavy gate.

The dogs appear to weigh around 20 pounds each, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t and won’t bite. Houston happens to be the U.S. Postal Service’s top city for employee dog bites, but the video clearly shows that the dogs were behind a closed gate, and the mailbox was outside of that gate.

They weren’t likely to break through the gate, weighing maybe 20 pounds each. Being small and cuddly doesn’t mean that a dog won’t bite when it feels threatened, but the family describes the pets as “lap dogs.”

The substance sprayed on them hasn’t been identified, but the dogs were in pain and the family reports that they couldn’t open their eyes for a few hours after being sprayed.

The USPS told the Houston Chronicle in a statement:

Every effort has been made to resolve this issue, and a senior postal manager will visit the pet owners and apologize, on behalf of the U.S. Postal Service. Regarding the status of the letter carrier, as this is a personnel issue, the Postal Service is not at liberty to comment.

The family stated that they don’t want the postal carrier to be fired, but they would like to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

US Postal Service apologizes after worker uses pepper spray on family dogs [Houston Chronicle]

EXCLUSIVE: MAILMAN APPEARS TO PEPPER SPRAY DOGS IN SECURITY VIDEO [KTRK]