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Retail giant Walmart has a dog issue.

CNBC reported Walmart (ticker: WMT) employees are running into dogs “big and small” as the retail giant pushes more into home delivery. There is another large company with ample dog experience which can offer some advice. Barron’s, of course, is referring to the U.S. Postal Service.

Investors shouldn’t forget about the post office. The USPS is a stealth giant. With more than $70 billion in annual sales, its logistics network rivals publicly traded peers. It has many lessons for investors and for corporate America.

Postal carriers, for instance, have been battling man’s best friend—very likely—since the agency’s founding. The post office predates the birth of the U.S. in 1776. (Benjamin Franklin was appointed as the first Post Master General in 1775.)

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"Nearly 6,000 postal employees were attacked by dogs last year, but that pales in comparison to the 4.5 million Americans attacked each year,” reads a notification on the USPS website. That’s why the post office supports National Dog Bite Prevention week which takes place in April. The USPS campaign theme is “Avoid the BITE.”

“We train our new carriers strongly on how to manage their work methods and how to identify safety hazards,” a USPS spokesman told Barron’s in an emailed statement. “We speak to all carriers on how to be prepared if a dog enters their work location and how to use the tools, such as Halt Dog Spray, MDD [Mobile Delivery Devices, handheld scanners] alerts, a satchel, dog-warning cards, for their personal safety. However, the safety of all carriers depends on responsible dog owners.”

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This is all a bit of fun. But Walmart’s problem highlights another problem for all parcel shippers, including United Parcel Service (UPS) or FedEx (FDX). More retailers are getting in the delivery game. FedEx, of course, cut ties with Amazon.com (AMZN) earlier in 2019 partly because of the e-commerce giant’s home-delivery ambitions.

“It’s an increasingly competitive landscape,” said CEO and Post Master General Megan Brennan on the Postal Service’s fiscal year-end earnings conference call on Nov. 14. “Our competitive advantage is access and reach.” Brennan believes the post office can compete, however, she wants the post office to have more autonomy over pricing and operations.

Even though the post office doesn’t receive federal support, Congress still sets postage prices. It also mandates other expenses that divert cash away from network investment.

Consider that the USPS lost $8.8 billion over fiscal 2019, ended Sept. 30, but it generated about $1 billion in free cash flow. The huge divergence between earnings and cash illustrates some problems experienced when Congress is essentially the board of directors.

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The current postal set up isn’t necessarily bad for UPS or FedEx. It seems neutral. After all, the post office sets its own price for parcel shipping. And it raises prices regularly, in part, to offset losses taken on first-class mail delivery.

Barron’s still likes the parcel shippers, and recently wrote positively about FedEx. The postal situation isn’t core to the investment thesis, though. Instead Barron’s believes the company can put its difficult 2019 year behind it. So far that call isn’t working out. Since the article appeared in July FedEx stock is down about 8%. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average, for comparison, are up 4.7% and 2.6%, respectively over the same span.

Part of the reason FedEx stock isn’t working is uncertainty. It isn’t clear how the distribution landscape will look down the road. And it isn’t clear why retailers such as Walmart and Amazon are trying to reinvent the wheel instead of relying on the billions of existing investment laid down by the parcel shippers.

Still, Barron’s believes UPS and FedEx can win in a changing delivery landscape. There will enough packages to deliver—from Walmart, Amazon, or others—for everyone to thrive in the future.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com