Postal carrier sprays Rancho Cordova resident’s cat in moment captured on video

Chris Commander was sitting at a computer in his Rancho Cordova living room around 7 p.m. Monday when he heard one of his two dogs barking by the front door.

He pulled up a livestream from his Ring doorbell camera and watched in distress: A U.S. Postal Service letter carrier was spraying Xena, the eldest of his four cats, with a chemical and a burst of expletives — in an incident that shook him even if it did not hurt the tortoiseshell cat, Commander recalled in a phone interview.

Commander, a 35-year-old security officer at the Sacramento VA Medical Center, said he jumped up to confront the carrier, who had already returned to his vehicle down the block.

“I asked him directly, did you spray my cat?” Commander said. “He denied it, obviously. And then he said something about he’s a cat lover himself.”

Commander wasn’t buying it.

Back at the house, where he lives with his girlfriend and their three children, Commander found Xena’s hair covered on one side with what he described as an oily substance without a strong odor. He feared the cat, well into her golden years at age 15, might have suffered a respiratory problem of the sort that recently caused the natural death of another old cat he owned. But Xena was unscathed.

“She seems like she’s in good spirits,” Commander said.

It was a particularly surprising, he said, because other postal carriers routinely pet Xena on the porch.

“I didn’t know I had to be worried about this,” he said. “I just can’t understand how this even happened, to be honest.”

Commander said he filed a formal online complaint and received confirmation that the Postal Service received it.

“The United States Postal Service holds its employees to high standards of conduct, and any actions that conflict with these values are taken seriously,” Meiko S. Patton, a USPS spokesperson, said in a statement. “We are currently reviewing this incident and will take appropriate action based on the results to ensure alignment with our commitment to integrity and professionalism.”

As for the mail sent to Commander’s house? The carrier left it on the hood of a car, rather than in the slot, he said. There were about six envelopes, one containing a SMUD bill.

This story was originally published July 31, 2025 at 2:45 PM.