It is often an image conjured up by comic books.

But the reality is huge numbers of postmen and women are still being attacked by dogs when delivering our mail.

Figures out today show they reported 147 such incidents in the 2016/17 financial year.

This amounts to just 12 fewer attacks on posties (159) reported between April 2015 and April 2016.

In total 695 attacks have been reported by Royal Mail workers delivering the post in the last five financial years.

The company released the data in a bid to show the scale of the problem and has offered tips to dog owners to help them keep their pets calmer around postal workers.

These include:

• Ensure your dog is out of the way before the postman or woman arrives e.g put your pet in the back garden or a far away room
• If you have a back garden, close off the access, in case your dog could get round to the front when the postie calls
• Give your dog some food or a toy to occupy them while your mail is being delivered
• Wait 10 minutes after your mail has arrived to let your pet back into your hallway, keeping everything as calm and low-key as possible

Nationally, in the last five years, there have been some 14,500 attacks, out of which more than 2,400 took place in the last year.

It means every day, seven postmen or women are attacked by a dog.

The majority of injuries were bites, but there were cuts, bruises, damaged tendons, and two cases actually led to amputations.